Jakeyboy70 said:
I think you just made my point for me. Pakistan has not been forced to comply with any UN resolutions (that I know of) or been bombed to shit for the last 12 years...
I think you have missed my point completely. Pakistan has not been forced to comply with UN resolutions because NONE HAVE BEEN PASSED. The UNSC does not deem their possession of nukes to be threat to international peace and security. If the UNSC did, then why hasn't France, Germany or Russia (not just the Britain and the US) asked for a formal UNSC resolution obligating the disarmament of their nukes?
Moreover, you may recall that Pakistan did not invade a sovereign state and have its troops ejected from that state by a foreign liberation force. The disarmament obligations imposed on Iraq were part of the ceasefire terms following the ejection of their forces from Kuwait. It's pointless arguing that Iraq does not possess illicit weapons because guilt has already been established. The 16 earlier UN resolutions condemned Iraq's possession of those weapons and imposed the unconditional obligation to disarm. No such resolutions have been passed in respect of Pakistan.
Jakeyboy70 said:
Nuvolari, you're talking as if 'the US' is some kind of continuous entity. Of course many of the same players are lurking around the corridors of power, but Bush senior, who served in WW2 and later as Ambassador to China knew the imporatance of consensus and diplomacy. That's why old Bush and the gang were more cautious than the present ideologically-driven neo-con chicken hawk thugs now clucking around the White House.
bob daktari said:
Well it ain't about WMD or freedom.... now was it?
Do you guys even know what neo-conservative means? I am not saying that the US isn't motivated by self interest. What I am saying is that that self interest is not driven by a select group of trigger-itchy lunatics. You seem to think that the Bush administration is run by an idiot who has his mind set of global domination and the pursuit of US commercial interests above all other costs. You also seem to think the leader of the world's most powerful nation is totally inept and incompetent, to the extent that he blindly follows the wishes of a small group of money-hungry "kill all Arab" hawks.
Your line of argument is fundamentally flawed and as Trapper and Bob have stated, utterly naive. I sourced the following link from The Economist that rips your argument to pieces. The link is to a restricted site, but if you have access, click
here.
The Economist notes:
quote:
Neo-cons start with the notion that America faces the challenge of managing a ?unipolar world? (a phrase coined by a neo-conservative commentator, Charles Krauthammer, in 1991). They see the world in terms of good and evil. They think America should be willing to use military power to defeat the forces of chaos. Admittedly, they go on to advocate democratic transformation in the Middle East, a view that is not shared throughout the administration.
In other words, by arguing that the Bush administration is dominated by neo-cons, you are automatically saying that the primary rationale of the war is to spread democracy and liberate the Iraqi people, which shits in the face of your argument about oil.
However, the Bush administration is not dominated by a select group of neo-cons, as The Economist goes on to note:
quote:
"So has a [neo-conservative] cabal taken over the foreign policy of the most powerful country in the world? Is a tiny group of ideologues using undue power to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries, create an empire, trash international law?and damn the consequences?
Not really. To argue that an intellectual clique has usurped American foreign policy is to give them both too much credit, and too little. American foreign policy has not been captured by a tiny, ideological clique that has imposed its narrow views on others. Rather, the neo-cons are part of a broader movement endorsed by the president, and espoused, to different degrees, by almost all the principals involved, from Vice-President Dick Cheney down (Colin Powell, the secretary of state, is a notable exception). Strands of neo-conservatism can even be found among some Democrats, which is why it makes sense to think that a new foreign-policy establishment may be emerging.
For the same reason, the criticism neglects the role of others. Near-consensus is found around the notion that America should use its power vigorously to reshape the world. Yet because parts of the neo-con agenda have been adopted by a president who is a mostly pragmatic decision-maker, and because the neo-cons themselves are politically astute, the neo-cons do not have things all their own way. They are powerful in so far as the president listens to them, rather than in their own right. The result is that American foreign policy is becoming a mixture of neo-conservative ideas, the president's instincts?and the realities of power...
...Some Europeans seem to think the neo-cons' influence is a direct result of Mr Bush's inability to grasp basic foreign-policy ideas. The recent evolution of American policy does not bear out this patronising view. The new policy was adopted in response to a cataclysmic event. It enjoys support at almost every level of government, including Congress (the main exceptions are the State Department and serving officers in the armed forces). Above all, the new policy is defined by the president himself. The neo-con clique depends on Mr Bush, not the other way around.
Perhaps you need to do some more research on big words.[/quote]
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