NationStates Jolt Archive

Near the end of his 2004 book "Future: Tense," which I'm reading at the moment, journalist and columnist Gwynne Dyer presents this bit of commentary regarding the War in Iraq.

"...The objective [of uniting nations] is to get through what promises to be a very difficult half-century without a world war, and what happens in the next couple of years may be decisive. Either we get back to building the international institutions we started working on sixty years ago, or we get used to the idea that we are working our way up to the Third World War. So it is important that the United States does not succeed in turning Iraq into a Middle Eastern base for Pax Americana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_americana), and that Americans come to see the whole project for global hegemony as an expensive mistake. But it is also important that other countries give the United States the softest possible landing. Not only does the world not need an angry and resentful America, it needs a United States that is actively committed to the project for building a law-based international society.


"There were times when it appeared that American power was seen to be more dangerous than Saddam Hussein. I'll just put it very bluntly. We just didn't understand it."
- Condoleezza Rice, May 30, 2003

At the G8 Summit after the invasion of Iraq, U.S. national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was like a schoolteacher reading out the end-of-term reports for a group of children who had failed to live up to their potential. "There was disappointment that a friend like Canada was not able to support the U.S. on what we considered a very important issue," she said. "There was disappointment in the response of the German government, too." And the behaviour of France was "particularly disappointing." It was ridiculous, but it was also very revealing. The United States had just carried out an entirely unprovoked and illegal act of aggression, everybody else knew that it was bound to end in tears - and yet Rice felt fully justified in rebuking them for failing to go along with it. It suggested an almost total inability to see the administration she served and its policies as others saw them.

It was not an isolated incident. The neo-conservatives never intended the United States to become as isolated as it has. They imagined that when they displayed American "resolve" and demonstrated that they were in sole charge of the planet through an exemplary war or two against universally unpopular regimes, all their old friends and allies would fall into line under Pax Americana more or less willingly. They were not supposed to respond as they have. Nobody in Washington in 2001 could have imagined that only two years later half of the European Union's citizens (according to an 18,000-person 15-country survey conducted six months after the invasion of Iraq) would see the United States as a danger to world peace rather than a force for good.

This peculiar inability to predict the responses of others is largely due to the very enclosed world in which American debate on these issues has taken place in recent years. From Samuel Huntington's The Coming Clash of Civilizations in the mid-1990s - immensely influential in the Washington bureaucracy and various think-tanks… - to Robert Kagan's 2003 book, Paradise and Power, which explains that the United States must take over the world but the Europeans won't understand why because "Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus," the key books and articles that have set the intellectual tone inside the Beltway in Washington have addressed a world that bears little resemblance to reality as experienced by most non-Americans.

The fact is that neither Europeans nor Asians nor (above all) Middle Easterners agree with mainstream American political opinion any more. They don't think al-Qaeda is a global menace. They don't live in fear of rogue states. They don't think we are living in the opening stages of a "clash of civilizations" (though they worry that Washington's efforts might yet make it happen). They don't agree with pre-emptive and preventive wars, and they don't believe that 9/11 "changed everything." And no amount of lecturing by American officials and academics who tell them to "grow up" is going to change that. It is a genuine difference of perspective, not anti-Americanism - but pushing Pax Americana much further could turn it into that.

Do you agree that there is a stark "difference of perspective" from inside and outside the United States, and that from the inside they largely do not understand how others see them? Do you believe that was a factor in the nation's call for aid for the invasion being met with so much resistence and reluctance world-wide?

Well, those who know anything understand that the world views us differently than we view ourselves.

The rest are Republicans.

Did you just call Europeans women?


(sorry...carry on)

Do you agree that there is a stark "difference of perspective" from inside and outside the United States, and that from the inside they largely do not understand how others see them?

No.


Do you believe that was a factor in the nation's call for aid for the invasion being met with so much resistence and reluctance world-wide?

Actually, reluctance in the west was small.

Actually, reluctance in the west was small.

Compared to what?

Did you just call Europeans women?


(sorry...carry on)

I think about 50% of us are.

If other nations had really not wanted the US to invade Iraq, I'm sure they would have done more than oppose resolutions at the UN.

They would have attacked US forces. They would have enacted a massive trade embargo. Plenty of options.

Saying, "We think it's a bad idea" and then not doing anything shows me that the nations that opposed the war weren't willing to put any real meaning behind what they said.

Even countries like Syria and Iran at least supplied insurgents with weapons and money. At least they had the courage of their convictions.

Yes, making your beliefs real hurts. Welcome to the real world. If the EU had wanted to attack the US, or embargo the US, it would have hurt the EU as well. But it looks like no one was really willing to pay the price to show that their convictions were real - so I hardly believe they were.

As it was, the UK even assisted the US. NATO nations are assisting in Afghanistan. That tells me that NATO nations have a much higher tolerance (or in some cases support) for US military action.

Do you agree that there is a stark "difference of perspective" from inside and outside the United States, and that from the inside they largely do not understand how others see them? Do you believe that was a factor in the nation's call for aid for the invasion being met with so much resistence and reluctance world-wide?

I don't think that the article is correct in asserting these two things:
They don't think al-Qaeda is a global menace.
They don't think we are living in the opening stages of a "clash of civilizations"
I think those two fears are alive and well in Europe, too.

With the rest, though, I agree.

Some of the biggest differences of perspective are in issues the article doesn't even mention, namely social issues like abortion, gay marriage, death penalty, religious fundamentalism, and environmentalism. While these don't have anything to do with foreign policy directly, they nonetheless influence how we see the US, i.e. as increasingly religious and backwards and ignorant and just... crazy.

Snip.

So the only way to actually be against a bank robbery being done with an AR-15 is to attack the thug and get shot only to see the robbery going on? Or you can be lying down fearing for your life and STILL be against it?

If other nations had really not wanted the US to invade Iraq, I'm sure they would have done more than oppose resolutions at the UN.

They would have attacked US forces. They would have enacted a massive trade embargo. Plenty of options.

Saying, "We think it's a bad idea" and then not doing anything shows me that the nations that opposed the war weren't willing to put any real meaning behind what they said.

Even countries like Syria and Iran at least supplied insurgents with weapons and money. At least they had the courage of their convictions.

Yes, making your beliefs real hurts. Welcome to the real world. If the EU had wanted to attack the US, or embargo the US, it would have hurt the EU as well. But it looks like no one was really willing to pay the price to show that their convictions were real - so I hardly believe they were.

As it was, the UK even assisted the US. NATO nations are assisting in Afghanistan. That tells me that NATO nations have a much higher tolerance (or in some cases support) for US military action.

...

So we should have started a war because we didn't want you to start a war?

They would have attacked US forces. They would have enacted a massive trade embargo. Plenty of options.

Saying, "We think it's a bad idea" and then not doing anything shows me that the nations that opposed the war weren't willing to put any real meaning behind what they said.
I think it shows a commitment to world peace. Attacking the U.S. would be to emulate their unpeaceful strategies, not conducive to a "law-based international society."

No.
No? You really think so?
I mean, even Condoleezza Rice figured it out eventually, in 2003 even, judging from the quote in the OP.

Actually, reluctance in the west was small.It was?

Americans are from Earth Eurpoeans are from Earth. Deal with it

If other nations had really not wanted the US to invade Iraq, I'm sure they would have done more than oppose resolutions at the UN.

They would have attacked US forces. They would have enacted a massive trade embargo. Plenty of options.

Saying, "We think it's a bad idea" and then not doing anything shows me that the nations that opposed the war weren't willing to put any real meaning behind what they said.

Even countries like Syria and Iran at least supplied insurgents with weapons and money. At least they had the courage of their convictions.

Yes, making your beliefs real hurts. Welcome to the real world. If the EU had wanted to attack the US, or embargo the US, it would have hurt the EU as well. But it looks like no one was really willing to pay the price to show that their convictions were real - so I hardly believe they were.

As it was, the UK even assisted the US. NATO nations are assisting in Afghanistan. That tells me that NATO nations have a much higher tolerance (or in some cases support) for US military action.
According to your post, if I saw my neigbhour and good friend take up a firearm and say "Dude, I'm gonna go kill that Bill dude from over the street, I think he' batshit insane and if I don't kill him first, he's gonna get my wife and kids", instead of telling him "Oh my God, you can't be serious, that's murder, you can't kill someone for something you think he might do, please sit down and think this through, if you've got evidence enough we'll call the police instead" I should have taken a shovel and gotten shot to death by him trying to kill him before he killed the other guy?

Eh, no. When you have a good friend about to do something stupid, you tell him "dude, you're about to do something stupid, please think again". You don't suddenly become mortal enemies with him and try to do something even MORE stupid.

If other nations had really not wanted the US to invade Iraq, I'm sure they would have done more than oppose resolutions at the UN.

They would have attacked US forces. They would have enacted a massive trade embargo. Plenty of options.

Saying, "We think it's a bad idea" and then not doing anything shows me that the nations that opposed the war weren't willing to put any real meaning behind what they said.

Even countries like Syria and Iran at least supplied insurgents with weapons and money. At least they had the courage of their convictions.

Yes, making your beliefs real hurts. Welcome to the real world. If the EU had wanted to attack the US, or embargo the US, it would have hurt the EU as well. But it looks like no one was really willing to pay the price to show that their convictions were real - so I hardly believe they were.
Or, in reality, everybody realises that there's something flawed with the logic of preventing conflict by starting world war three. And, believe it or not, there would be nothing heroic, and nothing gained, by starting mass slaughter and/or economic ruin in opposition to the Iraq war. in the same way there would be nothing gained if I jumped in front of an SUV to show my deep conviction against climate change. The vast majority of people and governments were and are opposed to the war, no matter how much spin you put on it to try and justify it long after it was shown to be a stupid mistake.

As it was, the UK even assisted the US. NATO nations are assisting in Afghanistan. That tells me that NATO nations have a much higher tolerance (or in some cases support) for US military action.
Since when was the Uk the only NATO member, since when was the Iraq and Afghan wars the same thing, and since when did supporting or objecting to one US led conflict mean one supports or opposes them all?

Compared to what?

Well consider the countries that went into Iraq.

Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Japan, Portugal, Singapore, Ukraine, Hungary, Iceland, Slovenia, Turkey, Spain, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Tonga, The Netherlands, Singapore, Norway, Italy, Slovakia...

They would have attacked US forces. They would have enacted a massive trade embargo. Plenty of options.

Saying, "We think it's a bad idea" and then not doing anything shows me that the nations that opposed the war weren't willing to put any real meaning behind what they said.

It's because the UN is a joke. It's a group of vastly different people who cannot agree on anything. Every issue has to be discussed endlessely by career politicians who do not dare sticking out their necks or stepping on any toes. They wait until someone else takes the decision for them instead of stating a real opinion.

I don't agree with the actions of the Bush regime and I know America is ruled by money alone, but I wish at least I had a government willing to actually do something about the issues at hand.

No? You really think so?
I mean, even Condoleezza Rice figured it out eventually, in 2003 even, judging from the quote in the OP.


I don't think americans largely do not understand their growing unpopularity.

Nobody understands anybody. Its part of being human. Humans from different countries and cultures are even harder to understand.

And here I thought from the title this was going to be about movies.

Well consider the countries that went into Iraq.

Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Japan, Portugal, Singapore, Ukraine, Hungary, Iceland, Slovenia, Turkey, Spain, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Tonga, The Netherlands, Singapore, Norway, Italy, Slovakia...

That says more about the subservient governments of these countries than about their people. Also, most of these countries sent less than 100 people. And a few of them, when they withdraw completely, won't withdraw "all" troops, but "both" troops.

That says more about the subservient governments of these countries than about their people. Also, most of these countries sent less than 100 people. And a few of them, when they withdraw completely, won't withdraw "all" troops, but "both" troops.

I thought reluctance from other nation states to support it is what he meant. And it's less then most that sent in less then 100 people. About half at most.

I thought reluctance from other nation states to support it is what he meant. And it's less then most that sent in less then 100 people. About half at most.

Still it's not strong support. Also, bear in mind, as well, that Italy - one example out of many - had its government at the time lose the election precisely for sending troops.

American's will never understand why or care that we hate them until it's too late and they're on there knees begging for our troops to bail them out of Iran.

Do you agree that there is a stark "difference of perspective" from inside and outside the United States, and that from the inside they largely do not understand how others see them?

Well, a lot of people in the USA are still deluded enough to think they're a force of "good" in the world, so yes.

American's will never understand why or care that we hate them until it's too late and they're on there knees begging for our troops to bail them out of Iran.

Somehow I don't see them begging as such

Somehow I don't see them begging as such

Yeah, they're currently more the type to start threatening and bullying others to help, instead of begging or asking nicely.

Seriously, the US administration has been having its head shoved up its ass for quite some time now. Here's hoping some positive change happens in 2008 before WWIII begins.

Well consider the countries that went into Iraq.

Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Japan, Portugal, Singapore, Ukraine, Hungary, Iceland, Slovenia, Turkey, Spain, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Tonga, The Netherlands, Singapore, Norway, Italy, Slovakia...

Wow. 75% of those combined would fit inside the continental United States. Neat.

Wow. 75% of those combined would fit inside the continental United States. Neat.

They still offered support. Not reluctance.

It's because the UN is a joke. It's a group of vastly different people who cannot agree on anything. Every issue has to be discussed endlessely by career politicians who do not dare sticking out their necks or stepping on any toes. They wait until someone else takes the decision for them instead of stating a real opinion.

I don't agree with the actions of the Bush regime and I know America is ruled by money alone, but I wish at least I had a government willing to actually do something about the issues at hand.
The united nations is us, not a "them." We're the nations who have united.

They still offered support. Not reluctance.

They still make up only a small percentage of the West, politically, and of them only two are significant "world powers." The rest were demonstratably reluctant.

Yes, I do think there is a world of difference in how we see US foreign policy from outside the US, compared to the US's internal view.

Yes, I do think there is a world of difference in how we see US foreign policy from outside the US, compared to the US's internal view.

Imperialism is only ever appealing when your own country is the one being imperialist.

Euopa is of Jupiter....

Yes, I do think there is a world of difference in how we see US foreign policy from outside the US, compared to the US's internal view.

Do you find that it's blatently evident on their television channels compared to yours?

Do you agree that there is a stark "difference of perspective" from inside and outside the United States, and that from the inside they largely do not understand how others see them? Do you believe that was a factor in the nation's call for aid for the invasion being met with so much resistence and reluctance world-wide?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. There's a difference in power relations certainly; the Germans, for instance, have neither the capability nor the inclination to project force beyond their borders in any way approaching our abilities and willingness. I would also say that of course our administrations are aware of the fact that as hegemon, we usually get thinly-veiled distaste as the standard response to our actions; it happens to every hegemon.

If, however, you are asking whether we have adopted a new position on whether that attitude would or could change over time, then yes we have. The neo-cons were very taken with the notion that if we showed that we could use power virtuously, then others would appreciate our virtue and enjoy the fruits of our labors. That they seriously overestimated our virtue and other nation's willingness to see our actions as virtuous is I think fairly obvious at this point.