The official title of the Georgian Commission is worth noting:

Temporary Commission to Study Russia’s Military Aggression and Other Actions Undertaken With the Aim to Infringe Georgia’s Territorial Integrity
 

Sandy:

1) There is no chance in hell that the NATO membership will agree to admit Ukraine and Georgia into the organization regardless of whether the US does or does not desire such an outcome or who happens to be President. Russia supplies a substantial portion of the EUs natural gas and can blackmail our NATO partners at will. See Sarkozy backing up Medvedev against their erstwhile NATO ally in Poland on the subject of missile defense last month.

2) Georgia was hardly being adventurist in conducting military operations in its own territory to stop Russian supplied and encouraged separatists from ethnically cleansing Ossetia of Georgians. While it may be impractical for NATO to support Georgia in case of further Russian invasions, that does not justify blaming the victim.
 

that does not justify blaming the victim

Baghdad, he isn't blaming the victim, he is pointing to evidence that the "victim" was really the guilty party.
 

Shorter Bart: "...but Russia started it!"
 

As malicious mischief goes, two of these seem like fairly tame examples. NATO membership requires the agreement of the other NATO members. That's not going to happen. "Moles" in the bureaucracy can be told to sit and face the wall without talking for 8 hours straight. Etc.

Paulson's mishandling of the bailout funds is more serious, but even then there are options. Personally, I favor a transaction fee on securities trades; that way, the industry which is getting the benefits will eventually pay us back. In short, there are creative solutions to a lot of this.
 

So much for an "accountability moment".
 

"Russia supplies a substantial portion of the EUs natural gas and can blackmail our NATO partners at will."

Substitute: "Little Lisa's bro" for "Russia," "Neocons" for "EUs," "attempt to pre-empt" for "blackmail," and "President Elect Obama's Administration" for "our NATO partners." Get the Airwick, please! And don't forget to include his backpack of lies.
 

I'm not worried. A move to rush these two nations into NATO will go nowhere.

Recently Nicholas Sarkozy asked Vladimir Putin, in reference to something he blurted out, whether he wanted to be likened to George W. Bush. Throw in the UK for good measure and it's time for Mr. Rogers: "Can you say Triple Entente? I knew that you could."

Leaving aside the EU's interests in Russia's oil and gas, it's well-known that the US broke all sorts of promises to Mikhail Gorbachev not to expand NATO to the degree it already has, this in exchange for his dismantling the USSR. That was before "history ended," so even the neoclowns have to treat it as historical fact.

The world is learning to like seeing these louts in its rearview mirror. You have to wonder, though, with all these lame quacks from them, when they'll finally recognize their own train wreck for what it is.
 

"Substitute: "Little Lisa's bro" for "Russia," "Neocons" for "EUs," "attempt to pre-empt" for "blackmail," and "President Elect Obama's Administration" for "our NATO partners.""

If you're going to substitute something else for everything, why pretend you're actually responding to what's been said?
 

Prof. Levinson wrote:
Today's New York Times has two stories that underline the price we pay, thanks to our defective Constitution, of maintaining in formal legal power--without any political authority otherwise--one of the most thoroughly repudiated administrations in the history of the American republic.

The period between the presidential election and the installation of the successful candidates may well be too long but it's not mandated by the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't specify the date for Federal elections; it gives Congress the authority to do so.

US Constitution
Article I Section 4.
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
[...]
Article II Section 2.
[...]
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
[...]

From 1792 to 1845 federal law allowed states to “chuse” their presidential electors “any time in a 34-day period before the first Wednesday of December, which was the day set for the meeting of the Electors of the U.S. president and vice-president (the Electoral College), in their respective states.” In 1845 Congress set a uniform date, which has been in use ever since.(Wikipedia, "Election Day")


The current statute is:
TITLE 3 CHAPTER 1 § 1. Time of appointing electors
The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President.

Although the Twentieth Amendment, inter alia “constitutionalized” the date of the presidential transition as the Jan. 20 following the election, Congress could shorten the period between election and inauguration by merely changing the election to a later date. No change in the Constitution would be necessary.

All the best,
Tom Doyle
 

If you're going to substitute something else for everything, why pretend you're actually responding to what's been said?

Fair question. A better one is why people like "Shag" and a few others here are so terrified at the thought of dissent that they hysterically troll over Bart's posts here just because he has the temerity to express opinions they disagree with.
 

Baghdad, he isn't blaming the victim, he is pointing to evidence that the "victim" was really the guilty party.

As Bart was pointing out -- if you bothered to pay attention rather than just being one of the aforementioned trollls -- even if Georgia "started it" in terms of the August 7th conflict, it's still the victim because the "it" that it started was an attempt to regain its own territory from Russian occupation.
 

The best analogy for the recent appearances of Bush Administration personalities at NATO meetings is perhaps that of a tired old musical comedy production making its last appearances before the show folds and the company is disbanded. The audience is now bored and is eagerly awaiting a hot new production with a star studded cast, presently in rehearsal in Chicago and scheduled to open in Washington DC on 20th January 2009.

However, on a previous thread started by Professor Levinson on 23rd August 2008 Further notes on constutional dysfunctionality: Who should be deciding about the expansion of NATO?, I drew to the attention of readers the questions raised by the presence of a bright young man in President Saakashvili's close entourage - a certain Daniel L. Kunin whose mother, Madeline May Kunin, is a former 3 term Governor of Vermont, also a former member of the Clinton Administration (Dep Sec Education) and a former US Ambassador to Switzerland, her country of origin. The Daily Telegraph carried a report about this young man:
Daniel Kunin interview: Georgia's Alistair Campbell. Alistair Campbell was more than just Tony Blair's chief spin doctor -he was the political strategist and what I found interesting was that Kunin was in a similar role in the Georgian President's inner circle while being paid by the US Government out of USAid funds.

On the same thread I reported that Kunin had been at a very exclusive Ditchely Foundation Conference held in 2006 Prospects for the Caucasus Region chaired by a top British diplomat, Sir Brian Fall GCVP KCMG - British
government Special Representative for the South Caucasus, formerly Ambassador to the Russian Federation and to the Republics of Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Turkmenistan (1992-95).

The US Delegation had been led by Deputy Assistant Secretary Matthew Bryza, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and tucked among the guest list of the great and good of the diplomatic world was this entry:-

"GEORGIA/UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - Mr Daniel Kunin - Senior Adviser to the Government of Georgia, Tbilisi (2003-). Formerly: Director, National
Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Moscow (2002-03)."

My conclusions then about Kunin were:-

"This guy is no gofer - he has been operating at very high level. He was paid by the USA - he had known all the right US people certainly since 2006. He was the Georgian President's spin doctor. As I see it, that makes it very unlikely indeed that official Washington did not know in advance that Georgia was going to attempt to retake South Ossetia in breach of the OSCE agreements."

Since then I have also found a May 2004 profile of Dr. Alexander (Alex) Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. The Best Ambassador for his Country. Dr Rondeli taught in the USA and it turns out that Kunin was one of his students.

Government diplomatic policy often develops along the lines developed in academic think tanks and the academic view of what national policy should be often develops legs of its own and becomes official policy.

So I still think that the Bush Administration was not taken by surprise by events in Georgia and may well have had more than a "mere onlooker" role. There were too many US military advisers and trainers in Georgia, not to mention young Kunin placed at the heart of matters, armed with a mobile phone and able to do his "ET phone home" thing, for it to be credible that the Georgia/Russia flare-up came as a surprise in Foggy Bottom.

I think there will still be an "institutional" US preference for early NATO membership for Georgia/Ukraine while Europe will wish to go more slowly. I don't expect any radical change in policy from the incoming administration, but I hope it will be more sensitive to the idea that NATO membership ought not to handed out like canapés at a diplomatic reception and only come when a country has developed sufficiently stable relationships with its neighbours and a minimum period of good governance internally.
 

but I hope it will be more sensitive to the idea that NATO membership ought not to handed out like canapés at a diplomatic reception and only come when a country has developed sufficiently stable relationships with its neighbours

So your position is that NATO membership ought to be reserved for countries that don't actually need it. How very... European. Restricting NATO to countries with "good governance," as you also propose, makes a lot of sense. But offering a defense treaty only to countries that aren't threatened? Not so much.
 

"If you're going to substitute something else for everything, why pretend you're actually responding to what's been said?"

Brett, and David Nieporent, apparently failed to notice that I did NOT "substitute something else for everything." I guess the "natural gas" passes through them as well as little Lisa's bro.

And David, I am not terrified of dissent, especially the automatic pre-emptive dissent from the likes of little Lisa's bro (to which you may also subscribe?): Party before country.
 

A better [question] is why people like "Shag" and a few others here are so terrified at the thought of dissent that they hysterically troll over Bart's posts here just because he has the temerity to express opinions they disagree with.

What are you talking about, Sir? And do you project much?

Speaking for myself, I'm rather a fan of dissent. What I have a problem with is mentally defective, incoherent, unprincipled ideologues who cannot distinguish their own infantile fears and desires from real world facts.

Bart's commentary frequently makes no sense whatsoever in addition to being self-contradictory. And he has a proven track record of cowardly retreat when his errors and duplicity are brought to his attention. So let's argue the facts, shall we?
 

So your position is that NATO membership ought to be reserved for countries that don't actually need it. How very... European. Restricting NATO to countries with "good governance," as you also propose, makes a lot of sense. But offering a defense treaty only to countries that aren't threatened? Not so much.

Putting aside your mischaracterization of mourad's position, the key question for NATO membership is NOT whether a country needs defending, but IS whether adding a new country is in the interests of the current members.

Small, belligerent countries -- especially those with no good territorial claim behind their belligerence -- present an obvious moral hazard. I'm guessing that the Russians learned this in 1914. We may profit by their example.
 

David Nierporent wrote:-

Restricting NATO to countries with "good governance," as you also propose, makes a lot of sense. But offering a defense treaty only to countries that aren't threatened? Not so much."

Offering a defense treaty is the equivalent in commercial terms of becoming a guarantor in an unlimited sum of a debtor. If one is on notice that the borders and territory of a nation are in dispute, do you think it is appropriate to enter into the equivalent of an unlimited sum guarantee, payable in blood, of those disputed borders?

Remember the practical lawyer's definition of a guarantee: "a guarantee is when someone who can't pay gets someone else who can't pay to say that he will pay".

Far better to say that one is supportive of the claims, but that one will require the disputes to be resolved by peaceful means before the guarantee takes effect.

Remember also that ever since the development of the Reagan "graduated response" doctrine, the absolute nature of the US commitment to the defence of NATO Europe has been open to question. Are you really naive enough to believe that the USA would have necessarily "gone nuclear" in the event of a Russian invasion of Europe? Watch Yes Prime Minister - Scientific Adviser for an idea of the issues.

I have to say that when I was sitting on the NATO side of the boundary with the Warsaw Pact tasked with trying to keep the USSR from getting to the Channel Ports within 48 hours, I was less than convinced that the USA would have exposed New York, Washington DC, etc to a nuclear exchange in defence of Hamburg, Brussels, Amiens and London than you appear to assume.
 

Mark, I don't disagree with anything you write (except where you claim I mischaracterized what Mourad said). If one wants to argue specifically that admission of Georgia into NATO isn't in the U.S.'s interests (or NATO's), then that's a reasonable position. But to make a general claim that NATO should only admit countries that don't need any defense assistance sort of raises the question of why bother.

Mourad, as for your new argument that you didn't really believe the U.S. would defend Europe, then what's the problem? If it's all a sham anyway, then how does it hurt? Either Russia agrees with you -- in which case admitting Georgia doesn't have any effect at all -- or it is more "naive" than you are, in which case admitting Georgia may have a deterrent effect. Where's the downside?
 

Mark, I don't disagree with anything you write (except where you claim I mischaracterized what Mourad said).

I didn't read this passage "NATO membership ought not to handed out like canapés at a diplomatic reception and only come when a country has developed sufficiently stable relationships with its neighbours and a minimum period of good governance internally." as in any way equivalent to saying that NATO membership should only go to those who don't need it.
 

I didn't read this passage "NATO membership ought not to handed out like canapés at a diplomatic reception and only come when a country has developed sufficiently stable relationships with its neighbours and a minimum period of good governance internally." as in any way equivalent to saying that NATO membership should only go to those who don't need it.

Well, what's the purpose of NATO? Last I checked, it was a mutual self-defense treaty. If a country isn't threatened by its neighbors, what good does NATO membership do it?
 

"Needs help" is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for membership.
 

David Nierporent wrote:-

"Mourad, as for your new argument that you didn't really believe the U.S. would defend Europe, then what's the problem? If it's all a sham anyway, then how does it hurt? Either Russia agrees with you -- in which case admitting Georgia doesn't have any effect at all -- or it is more "naive" than you are, in which case admitting Georgia may have a deterrent effect. Where's the downside?"

David, The case I make is not new. I do not think you can have read the whole of the previous thread on Georgia and NATO issues, where there were some quite extensive exchanges with LSR Bart and where I attempted to set out some of the issues.

The most important is that the Bush Administration's eagerness to get new ex-soviet satellite countries into NATO (often holding it out as the 1st step towards EU Membership) has not been matched by a willingness to contribute to the costs of development of these countries.

The following are some extracts from posts on the previous thread which may assist you to better understand the European point of view.

Quotation 1 - EU Neighbourhood Countries and the USA
=======================================

Since the Soviet Empire began to collapse, the EU has absorbed into the Union a large number of states which were formerly Soviet satellites: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. The fiscal cost of doing that to the taxpayers of the other EU states has been and continues to be very substantial indeed.

In May 1998, the UK House of Commons Research Department did a bit of research into the anticipated costs of funding the programme for the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. It reported that the budget cost for 2000-2006 was expected to be 79.9 billion Euro. The area and population would increase by 17% while the the economy would grow by only 6% and GDP per capita fall to 81% of the EU6 GDP per capita. In 2005, the 10 countries which joined the EU in 2004 received about 4bn euros more from the EU than they paid into the budget. This comes to about 4% of the EU budget, which is itself about 1% of the EU's gross national income. In 2006, Bulgaria and Romania got about 1.5bn Euros in pre-accession aid. For 2000-2006, the EU provided for more billions of aid for the states on its new borders.

The 2007-13 package allocates 827.6 million Euros to multi-country aid programmes and 4,116.5 million Euros for country programmes: Algeria 220m, Armenia 98.4m, Azerbaijan 92m, Belarus 20m, Egypt 558m, Georgia 120.4m, Israel 8m, Jordan 265m, Lebanon 187m, Libya 8m, Moldova 209.7m, Morocco 654m, Palestinian Authority 632m, Syria 130m, Tunisia 300m, Ukraine 494m, Russian Federation 120m. This is in addition to bilateral aid from EU member states.

While the USA of course provides the most foreign aid in US Dollar terms, as a percentage of GNI the USA comes last in the top 22 donor countries: see the OECD bar chart on p 25 of 2004 Foreign Aid Review-CRS. Much aid (about 85%) is either tied military assistance or food aid in kind.

What the USA does provide is just 0.9% of the Federal Budget. The figures are further fudged by including monies for reconstruction in Iraq as foreign aid instead of war damage reparations. In 2006, Israel and Egypt were the two largest recipients of US aid. Israel received $2,520 millions, of which $2,280 military aid and Egypt $1,795 millions of which $1,300 military. Israel and Egypt together got one third of all US aid. Pakistan got $698 millions (nearly all military) to go after terrorists. The programme for assistance to former soviet states was just US$482 millions, most of it for military purposes.

Quotation 2
===========
The Bush Administration has been very keen to provide military assistance to the countries coming out from under the USSR yoke, not really of course to enable them to defend themselves against the Soviet Union, rather to enable them to provide a new source of "cannon fodder" for the US military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Administration has been much less ready to provide any significant development assistance, expecting Europe once again to bear the heavy burden of of turning these fragile new democracies into viable, performing European states.

Quotation 3
===========
"..the tragedy of 11th September 2001 led the USA to determine to intervene militarily in Afghanistan. There was much US decrying of the failure of NATO to provide adequate assistance to US efforts. A good example was this article by John C. Hulsman, Ph.D. Europe and NATO: Strengthening the Alliance for the Future published on the web site of the Neoconservative Heritage Foundation.

The essential dishonesty of the article is that it does not say that the European states wanted and offered to give the USA every assistance of which they were capable. The public sympathy for the USA after 9-11 was at such a height that the USA could have asked for and got every person in uniform on the European sub-continent needed to intervene in Afghanistan. The problem was the UN Charter. European nations wanted the legal cover of an authorisation from the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter. Such an authorisation was on offer. The Bush Administration decided not to ask for one. It wanted to ignore international law and act unilaterally.

What is also true is that through lack of sufficient "boots on the ground" Rumsfeld's high-tech US military allowed most of the Al-Quai'da fighters simply to walk across the Afghan-Pak border and live to fight another day. The principal achievement of US intervention in Afghanistan thus far has been a vast increase in the illegal drugs trade from Afghanistan to Europe. The European NATO member states which have throughout contributed 90% of the ISAF force, have been left to pick up the pieces and recover the situation to the extent possible.

One of the think tanks devoted to thinking through US-European defence issues is US-Crest and in September 2002 (after the US-led unilateral intervention in Afghanistan, but before the unilateral and unlawful US-UK invasion and occupation of Iraq. it published what many think was an important contribution to the debate - a report of a joint working group established with the French based, Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, the German-based Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik and the UK-based Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies and in which the US, UK, French and German defence ministries participated. [Warning - the PDF is 146 pages] Future Military Coalitions - The Transatlantic Challenge.

Some key conclusions:-

"The terrorist attacks of September 11th sharply underscored the critical importance of "winning the peace" when intervening militarily in crisis situations, as festering instabilities and failed states can give rise to acute terrorist and other asymmetric threats. Moreover, coalition operations in Afghanistan and the debate over regime change in Iraq have sharply highlighted the fundamental importance as well as the huge problems involved in "winning the peace" when undertaking military interventions in countries with very difficult political, economic, ethnic and social conditions. Winning the peace entails creating the conditions that will allow for a withdrawal of the intervention force without risking renewed destabilization and violence. This requirement can often lead to very lengthy military deployments. These observations underline the critical importance for NATO and EU nations to form coalitions in order to carry out military interventions.

Washington chose to run the initial stages of the Afghanistan campaign largely on its own, except for the involvement of British forces and a modicum of support from other allies. In a campaign dominated at that point by local proxy forces, special operations forces, and highly sophisticated air delivery of precision guided munitions, integrating allied militaries into the operation seemed more of a complication than a benefit, while U.S. perceptions that European political involvement in the NATO campaign in Kosovo had been overly intrusive further motivated Washington to act largely on a unilateral basis.

However, following the overthrow of the Taliban regime, the militaries of other NATO countries became extensively involved in Afghanistan as the need to hunt for dispersed Taliban and Al Qaeda forces as well as to maintain security in Kabul required significant numbers of "boots on the ground". Despite this extensive allied involvement, NATO as an institution remained on the sidelines of the campaign, leading many in the transatlantic security community to proclaim that the organization was "dead."

Although the U.S. may be able to win wars without significant allied contributions, it is unlikely in many situations to be able to win the peace without military (and non-military) assistance from European allies, whether those situations develop within or outside Europe.

It is also true that the Europeans, having hosted two world wars in the 20th century, tended to accept vulnerability to the use of force as a fact of life, as undesirable as it might be. The United States, on the other hand, regarded vulnerability as an unacceptable condition. The attack on Pearl Harbor, perhaps because it occurred on an outpost of U.S. territory and did not directly affect the mainland, left Americans believing that the goal of invulnerability remained a valid U.S. national objective.

It is easy to overgeneralize, but it does appear that the divergence in U.S. versus European military capabilities and attitudes toward vulnerability over the years has contributed to different instincts concerning the use of force on behalf of national interests. The Europeans, facing a constant decline in their ability to project and sustain force beyond their borders, leaned increasingly on diplomatic finesse and economic largesse to sustain influence in the world.

The United States meanwhile, having built a large and capable military establishment, became more willing than Europe to use force to diminish its vulnerability, promote its ideology, and accomplish American foreign policy goals. The terrorist attacks of September 11th further increased this U.S. emphasis on military capability and the divergence in U.S.-European perspectives towards the use of force."

The perception as the Iraq war draws to a close is that the real interest of the USA in pushing for the admission of new NATO member states is a desire to arm them and use them as a recruiting ground for cheap "cannon fodder" or "boots on the ground" for use in US unilateral ad-hoc coalitions under exclusive US command. It has pursued this objective without regard to the question whether the governments of such states are ready to join NATO in terms of stability and good governance. Georgia is a case in point - but it is not the only example

So, for me, Georgia is a symptom of a much wider institutional problem with NATO. Part of the problem is down to the unilateralism of the Bush administration but it is wider than that - extending to diverging views on human rights and other fundamental differences at the political level.

There can be no military partnership where the Rules of Engagement of one partner tolerate torture and the ROE of the other make that criminal conduct or where one partner will use air power where the other considers that unacceptable.

Whither NATO post Bush?
Most US citizens are blissfully unaware of just how unpopular the USA has become abroad or if they are aware they do not care.

The following is an extract from testimony by Andrew Kohut (Pew Global Attitudes Project) to the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs; Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight - Link to Full Text .

"Features of Current Anti-Americanism

Beyond the bottom line percentages I would like to describe to you what we have learned about nature of the anti-Americanism we see today.

First, it is worldwide. This is not just a rift with our European allies or hatred of America in the Middle East. It is a global slide, and positive views of the U.S. have declined in other regions of the world, particularly in Latin America and Asia. Our 44-country 2002 poll found America's image slipping in seven of the eight Latin American countries surveyed, while our 2006 survey revealed declines in Japan and India, two still relatively pro-American Asian powers. Other polls international polls, such as BBC and Gallup have confirmed the continuing world-wide nature of America's image problem.

Second, while anti-Americanism is a global phenomenon, it is clearly strongest in the Muslim world. For instance, in all five predominantly Muslim countries included in our 2006 study, fewer than one-third of those surveyed had a favorable view of the U.S. Moreover, with the Iraq war, anti-Americanism spread to parts of the Muslim world where the U.S. had previously been relatively popular. In Indonesia, for example, between 2002 and 2003 America's favorability rating dropped from 61% to only 15%. In Turkey it plunged from 52% in the late 1990s to 15% by 2003.

After Iraq, many in Muslim countries began to see the U.S. as a threat to Islam, and what had perhaps been loathing for the U.S. turned into both fear and loathing. A 2005 Pew study found that in all five majority Muslim countries surveyed, solid majorities said they worried that the U.S. might become a military threat to their country. This includes 65% in Turkey - a longstanding NATO ally.

Third, among many people, anti-Americanism is an intensely held opinion, which makes it difficult to change. The first eye opener for me was a 2003 European Union poll that 53% of people in EU countries saw the U.S. as a threat to world peace. Strikingly, Europeans were as likely to say this about the U.S. as they were to say it about Iran and North Korea.

The 2006 Pew survey had similar findings. The British, French, and Spanish publics were all more likely to say the U.S. presence in Iraq poses a great danger to regional stability and world peace than to say this about the current governments of Iran or North Korea.

A fourth feature of contemporary anti-Americanism is that it is no longer just the U.S. as a country that is perceived negatively, but increasingly the American people as well, a sign that anti-American opinions are deepening and becoming more entrenched. In countries such as Spain, Jordan, Indonesia, and Turkey, favorable views of Americans have declined significantly in recent years.

People are also suspicious of American power. In a 2004 Pew poll, majorities or pluralities in seven of the nine countries surveyed said the U.S.-led war on terrorism was not really a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism. This was true not only in Muslim countries such as Morocco and Turkey, but in France and Germany as well. The true purpose of the war on terrorism, according to these skeptics, is American control of Middle East oil and U.S. domination of the world.

There are other factors that contribute to the rise of anti-Americanism. Looking at the divide between Europe and the U.S., it is particularly stark on questions about using military force, especially preemptive force. While Americans generally prefer containment to preemption, they nonetheless are much more willing to accept preemption than are Europeans. And our 2004 poll found sharp differences over the importance of multilateral approaches to the use of force - while majorities in Britain, France, and Germany think that when countries are faced with an international threat they should first get UN approval before using military force, a plurality of Americans disagree. Overall, Americans are more likely than Europeans to regard military action as a legitimate means of achieving international justice."

I expect the new US Administration will bring a different style to US-Europe relations. The election of Barack Obama has been very favourably received.

Neverthless the fundamental differences of world-view between the USA and Europe will not be resolved simply because the USA will shortly have new leadership which Europeans are likely to find more palatable. The damage done by the 8 years of the Bush administration runs far too deep to be remedied simply by fair words.
 

Mourad:

The only thing more foolish than basing policy on domestic popularity polls is basing it popularity polls in other countries.

When other countries stop begging for our assistance to bail them out and stop banging down the doors to get into our country, I might take such polls semi-seriously.

In any case, given that Mr. Obama is subcontracting out national security to GOP hawks in his cabinet and foreign policy to the Clinton centrist wing of his own party, you are wise not to fool yourself that the US is going to self neuter itself for the sake of popularity in the near future.
 

just because he has the temerity to express opinions they disagree with.

# posted by David Nieporent : 1:41 AM

No one is mocking Baghdad Bart because he is expressing a dissenting opinion, he is being mocked because he is a lying scumbag.

even if Georgia "started it" in terms of the August 7th conflict, it's still the victim because the "it" that it started was an attempt to regain its own territory from Russian occupation.

# posted by David Nieporent : 1:44 AM

Georgia agreed to a cease-fire. I'm pretty sure that launching an attack violated the cease-fire.

As for getting South Ossetia back, they can now forget about that. But if you feel we should be helping Georgia, feel free to get your ass into the fight.
 

Bart de Palma wrote:-

"The only thing more foolish than basing policy on domestic popularity polls is basing it [on] popularity polls in other countries.

I suppose some sour grapes were to be expected from the loathsome spotted reptiles of the far right: after all, according to Pollster.com, the Toxic Texan is leaving office with just 25.7% of Americans approving of his performance and 68.9% of American disapproving. That's quite an achievement.

President-elect Obama won the election quite decisively (and by the biggest margin ever for a non-incumbent). As a party, the GOP has also taken a drubbing at the polls.

LSR Bart's assertion is in one sense profoundly undemocratic. In a democracy one has to retain the confidence of the electorate to be elected. Therefore if a party wishes to remain in office and to be able to carry out its policies, it has to have some regard to its approval ratings.

What the recent election shows is that in two party first past the post electoral systems a party must appeal to the centre. If one allows one's party to be captured by the extreme ideologues, whether of the fascist right or of the marxist or trotskyist left, the inevitable consequence will eventually be rejection at the polls.

Since it is also bad for democracy for only one of the two major parties to be electable, the interesting question in US politics over the coming months is going to be whether the GOP can re-invent itself as a centrist party. Thus far, the signs are not altogether encouraging: there are large parts of what Saturday Night Live once described as "Dumbfuckistan" where the electors still seem to put a premium on crass stupidity when selecting their representatives.

So if LSR Bart still has political ambitions, he could still run in Colorado Springs which seems to be a Focus on the Family outpost of "Dumbfuckistan" in a state which has overall turned blue.

LSR Bart continued:-

When other countries stop begging for our assistance to bail them out....

It is unclear what LSR Bart means by this expression. Does he mean all those right wing dictators around the world who sought US assistance - against their own people - and got it under successive US Administrations ?

Or is he speaking of economic assistance where the USA proudly comes bottom of the list of the top 22 donors in terms of the Foreign Aid as a percentage of GNI ?

Or is he speaking of the relationship between the USA and the State of Israel so well foreshadowed in Washington's Farewell Address 1796:-

"So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."

If Bart is speaking in terms of an economic bail out, he may care to look at this prescient article by William Greider dated 22nd April 2004 and published in the Nation Debtor Nation from which this is an extract:-

"The US economy, in essence, is being kept afloat by enormous foreign lending so that consumers can keep buying more imports, thus increasing the bloated trade deficits. This lopsided arrangement will end when those foreign creditors--major trading partners like Japan, China and Europe--decide to stop the lending or simply reduce it substantially.

That reckoning could arrive as a sudden thunderclap of financial crisis--spiking interest rates, swooning stock market and crashing home prices. More likely it will be less dramatic but equally painful. As foreign capital moves elsewhere and easy credit disappears for consumers, many Americans will experience a major decline in their living standards--a gradual grinding-down process that could continue for years. If the US government reacts passively and allows "market forces" to make these adjustments, the consequences will be especially severe for the less affluent--families already stretched by stagnating wages and too much borrowing."

I do not think it could properly be said that "other countries" are "begging for [US] assistance" at this time. The boot is really on the other foot.

I suggest that what Europe is looking for in the next Administration is an approach where cupidity and stupidity are not the leitmotifs of its foreign policy, and where the rule of law is something to be respected, not evaded. I think Roger Cohen has it about right in this NYT op-ed A Command of the Law.
 

In any case, given that Mr. Obama is subcontracting out national security to GOP hawks

Bart, you'll always have wishful thinking. No one can take that away from you.

Happy Thanksgiving.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Mourad:

President-elect Obama won the election quite decisively (and by the biggest margin ever for a non-incumbent). As a party, the GOP has also taken a drubbing at the polls.

Not even close. In the 20th Century, FDR 1932 and Reagan 1980 won far greater victories. Mr. Obama won a "landslide" compared to prior Dem candidates, but only a midrange victory historically.

I suggest that what Europe is looking for in the next Administration is an approach where cupidity and stupidity are not the leitmotifs of its foreign policy, and where the rule of law is something to be respected, not evaded. I think Roger Cohen has it about right in this NYT op-ed A Command of the Law.

Hardly.

The EU is only dedicated to "international law" when it suits their national objectives. When the economic non-entity Serbia was engaged in mass murder, the EU was happy to blow off the UN and engage in what you consider to be an illegal war. However, when it their trading buddy and bribe source Iraq was the problem, the EU demanded the US and Britain get UN permission so their economic interests would not be threatened.

The EU does not have a corner on respect for the law, they have a corner on hypocrisy.

What the EU is looking for is a pliant United States that will at least occasionally defer to them rather than treating them as the international power afterthought that they have become.
 

Dear me,

It seems as if our pet loathsome spotted reptile has stopped taking his medication once again.

Perhaps some kind soul could take him round to the animal hospital and have him sedated - these ravings can be doing his poor little brain no good at all, poor thing.
 

Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.
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