The Political Discussion Thread

[jelgate]

Noooo thank you. You can keep your broken, dysfunctional government to yourselves, thank you very much.

Isn't that the definition of government?

[DigiFluid]

Isn't that the definition of government?

...fair point

[jelgate]

...fair point

Yay! I win.

*puts on PH's Victory Hat*

[Womble]

This is true. But who's unicorns?

When you find one, look at the tag.

[lordofseas]

What is there to explain? Name me a US ally and I'll show you the damage Obama has done to that alliance.

Japan.

Nice try at moving goalposts, but won't wash. Obama's main thrust in the Middle East during most of his term was attempting to follow the leftist recipe for handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict- pressure Israel, treat Palestinians like they're golden. How did that work out? Well, like I said, for the first time in twenty years nobody's talking to anybody, the Palestinians have gobbled up everything Obama gave them and tried to cut him out of the picture with their UN move, and the Israelis no longer trust American guarantees after Obama abrogated the guarantees given by Bush- worse yet, he attempted to deny that any such guarantees ever existed, despite it being widely known.

Netanyahu extended a letter to Abbas' office recently. Apparently, Mofaz said he would only join Kadima to the government if the negotiations were restarted. Abbas said repeatedly that he's willing to talk, but wants the settlement constructions to be halted for the time being. The Palestinians also said that they would not proceed with the UN move if they were in negotiations with Israel, but because of the lack of talking, they went through with it anyway. Obama also said he did not support the bid for observer state on the part of the Palestinians, saying that negotiations with Israel were the best way forward. So, he's not treating the Palestinians with high regard. What I don't get is why Netanyahu won't order an end to the building of settlements in the West Bank, the very action that is stiffening the backs of the Palestinians, and just negotiate with them. Perhaps you want to explain this.

Oh but he did. He treated Mubarak as his best friend (see the Cairo speech; does anyone still remember the historic Cairo speech?) right until he called for his resignation. Then He went as far as threatening to cut US aid to Egypt should Mubarak resist the crowd's attempt to dethrone him. And America's "special allies", the Saudis, immediately offered to replace US money with theirs should US aid be cut. All-around great success of Obama's foreign policy.

Mubarak is gone, Egypt is setting up elections, and no forces were deployed over Egypt. This is a failure...how? Because he attempted to influence Mubarak into obeying the will of the people? I don't see Egypt as a particular failure.

Less American nuclear weapons. START treaty is complete idiocy in principle, a piece of Cold war thinking that still assumes that Russia and the US are the only nuclear powers in the game. The US reduces its nuclear weapons stockpile, sure- but does China have any part in START? Russia's got nothing to lose; most of their nukes are so old they're in need of decommission anyhow. But Obama paid the price of START at the expense of third parties. No missile defense for Eastern Europe = Poland and the Czech left to Russia's mercy (right after signing START Russia conducted a military exercise simulating nuclear and conventional attack on Poland). He also sold out Britain in the same breath, using his closest ally's defense secrets as a bargaining chip to purchase Russia's favor.

Russia is well aware that it could not attack Poland without getting NATO and the UN involved. Eastern Europe should also not be relying on the United States to defend their countries.

The selling of secrets was a mistake, yes.

In what bizarre sense is this a foreign policy success? And why should Obama even be credited for it when everyone knew from the get go that the US wasn't going to stay there forever?

In what other category would this fall under? Defence? Hardly. And considering the context of the two former candidates (Obama and McCain, and what McCain said, that he would stay one hundred years if he had to), he's done well. They knew that they wouldn't stay there forever, but I believe it was the second longest war, second only the War in Afghanistan. The American people wanted the troops out, and for the most part, he's done that. So, it fulfils a promise on his part, which he can use as a tactic.

P.S. Being a Russian speaker, I'll never forget what was intended to be Obama's great policy success, the "reset" with Russia. The White House village idiot couldn't even do his theatrics right; that big red prop button that Hillary Clinton presented to the Russians was supposed to have the Russian word for "reset" printed on it, but it actualy said "overload". And Clinton actually told Lavrov that she and her team "worked hard to get the Russian word right". Somebody needs to teach the White House to use dictionaries.

Google works better.

[Womble]

Japan.

Here you go.

Netanyahu extended a letter to Abbas' office recently. Apparently, Mofaz said he would only join Kadima to the government if the negotiations were restarted. Abbas said repeatedly that he's willing to talk, but wants the settlement constructions to be halted for the time being. The Palestinians also said that they would not proceed with the UN move if they were in negotiations with Israel, but because of the lack of talking, they went through with it anyway. Obama also said he did not support the bid for observer state on the part of the Palestinians, saying that negotiations with Israel were the best way forward. So, he's not treating the Palestinians with high regard. What I don't get is why Netanyahu won't order an end to the building of settlements in the West Bank, the very action that is stiffening the backs of the Palestinians, and just negotiate with them. Perhaps you want to explain this.

Sure.

You see, you have next to zero understanding as to what exactly went on, so here's the full story.

First, understanding why Netanyahu won't order a halt to construction in settlements is very simple. You need to keep three things in mind. First, "halt to settlement construction" means putting half a million people into a housing stranglehold in exchange for nothing whatsoever. Second, construction in settlements has never been an obstacle to negotiations until Obama came along. Third, the demand was for a construction freeze in all "settlements" including those which under Clinton parameters are supposed to be retained by Israel under the final agreement- and including Jerusalem's Old City. Which created a major embarrassment for Obama when Israel "violated" the freeze by rebuilding a 17th century synagogue in the Old City- exposing the utter absurdity of the freeze demand to such an extent that even Joe Biden couldn't utter a word of condemnation without looking like a moron. The demand to freeze construction in those settlement blocs and in east Jerusalem was a direct violation of previous US guarantees, which is why Obama found it necessary to deny that such guarantees ever existed.

Here's the full story (links will be provided if necessary if your Googling ability isn't up to snuff). Up until Obama, for twenty plus years, negotiations went on without preconditions. When Obama came along, he wanted to be popular with the Arabs, hence the Cairo speech with its "accidental omissions" that amounted to full endorsement of the Arab narrative (omissions included the Jews' historical ties to the land of Israel but weren't limited to that). He approached the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the way his leftie advisors told him: more free gifts for Palestinians, more distance from Israel. So he offered the Palestinians that he would get Israel to freeze construction in the settlements if they were to reciprocate with a goodwill gesture of their own towards Israel. The Palestinians immediately adopted the demand to freeze settlement construction (they can't be less Palestinian than the US President, after all), but instead of a goodwill gesture of their own, they simply made negotiations themselves conditional on the freeze. Even were their demands met, they would return to strictly "indirect" negotiations- as in without actually being present in the same room as the Israelis, as opposed to the direct negotiations that were normal pre-Obama. Obama quickly learned that he's not going to get anything from Abbas, so he tried to move the goalposts and get the Arab states to offer Israel a goodwill gesture instead. (It's a repeating pattern in the "peace process"; sooner or later it comes to the point when the Palestinians have to do something, and they never do, so in order to keep the show running the "peacemakers" start looking for creative ways to make peace without the Palestinians having to make any peace). He was snubbed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and every other Arab "ally" he turned to. So he tried to obtain a settlement freeze through pure pressure, offering Israel nothing in return. That Netanyahu eventually agreed to a nine month freeze for the sake of salvaging what was left of the peace process, on condition that Obama would not demand extension after that. And there was a freeze for nine months (another thing no one remembers), during which the Palestinians did not even try to return to negotiations. During the last weeks of the freeze, they held a couple of "indirect" sessions after which they demanded more freeze time. So Obama broke the deal with Netanyahu and demanded more freeze. That wasn't well received, so he offered to sweeten the deal by offering Israel a squadron of F35 fighter jets. Fine, said the Israelis, but this time put it in writing- and all of a sudden the generous offer was no longer on the table (a textbook scam attempt).

Meanwhile, Obama made a pompous speech in the UN that mentioned how he expected to welcome a Palestinian state as a new UN member next year. He meant that it would happen after a peace agreement was signed, but the Palestinians figured that they didn't need a peace agreement; they'd just get UN membership without stopping terrorism or giving up on their effort to destroy Israel. Their campaign for UN membership actually used the video of Obama's speech. At that point Obama finally began to realize that things weren't working out according to the plan and that the Palestinians were going to become a state without him playing the lead role. It was from that moment on that he began to sound somewhat pro-Israeli in his speeches, long enough to thwart the Palestinian statehood bid, and then quietly shifted the focus of his foreign policy to the Far East- the one corner of the world where he hasn't yet committed any truly epic blunders (he made a fair share, just not as epic as in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas).

Mahmoud Abbas, by the way, explicitly stated multiple times that the main reason why he insists on a settlement freeze is because Obama introduced it as a demand and now the Palestinians can't afford to back down without looking like they are, you know, making a compromise.

Mubarak is gone, Egypt is setting up elections, and no forces were deployed over Egypt. This is a failure...how? Because he attempted to influence Mubarak into obeying the will of the people? I don't see Egypt as a particular failure.

Obama had two choices: support an ally and signal to the rest of his allies that he takes alliances seriously, or demanding from the get go that dictators surrender to the will of the people. He did neither; he supported Mubarak while he was strong and turned agressively against him while he was weak. One can't help but contrast it with the ever-so-cautious attitude of the Obama administration to dictatorial regimes genuinely hostile to the US, such as Syria. Obama continued to portray Assad as potential reformer and Syria's best hope for democracy until pretty much the rest of the world turned against the Syrian regime, and only then did Obama reluctantly join in on demands for regime change. Basically, if you're Obama's enemy, you're safer and you will be treated much better than if you're his ally.

Russia is well aware that it could not attack Poland without getting NATO and the UN involved. Eastern Europe should also not be relying on the United States to defend their countries.

I would argue that NATO and the UN wouldn't necessarily want to mess with Russia over Poland, especially with nukes in the picture. But the point of the exercise was to send Eastern Europe the message that they're now at Russia's mercy and can no longer count on the US for protection. The message was received; not much love for Obama in Poland these days.

The selling of secrets was a mistake, yes.

Back in my days, the term was "betrayal".

In what other category would this fall under? Defence? Hardly. And considering the context of the two former candidates (Obama and McCain, and what McCain said, that he would stay one hundred years if he had to), he's done well. They knew that they wouldn't stay there forever, but I believe it was the second longest war, second only the War in Afghanistan. The American people wanted the troops out, and for the most part, he's done that. So, it fulfils a promise on his part, which he can use as a tactic.

If you can't find the label for it, that's no reason to file it under "foreign policy".

A foreign policy achievement would be something that improves the country's foreign relations. Withdrawing from Iraq did nothing in that department, not even with Iraq itself; in fact, the US had to COMPENSATE for it because it increased the vulnerability of US allies in the Persian Gulf, hence the recent stationing of F22s in the Arab mirates.

Whatever category it falls under, it's neither foreign policy nor defense.

Google works better.

Well, if you were Obama's foreign policy advisor, one blunder could be avoided. Maybe.

[lordofseas]

Here you go.

So, Clinton's criticism of a Japanese Premier over a base. This ruined relations with Japan? No. He's no longer Premier, due to high unpopularity, and there is a plan in place to move soldiers off the base as a way to appease the Okinawans, though they still aren't happy with the base. And now, Japanese-American relations are in the gutter? No. They're going along well, especially in the light of the US response to the 2011 Earthquake. So, no slice. Next up, Australia.

Sure.

You see, you have next to zero understanding as to what exactly went on, so here's the full story.

First, understanding why Netanyahu won't order a halt to construction in settlements is very simple. You need to keep three things in mind. First, "halt to settlement construction" means putting half a million people into a housing stranglehold in exchange for nothing whatsoever. Second, construction in settlements has never been an obstacle to negotiations until Obama came along. Third, the demand was for a construction freeze in all "settlements" including those which under Clinton parameters are supposed to be retained by Israel under the final agreement- and including Jerusalem's Old City. Which created a major embarrassment for Obama when Israel "violated" the freeze by rebuilding a 17th century synagogue in the Old City- exposing the utter absurdity of the freeze demand to such an extent that even Joe Biden couldn't utter a word of condemnation without looking like a moron. The demand to freeze construction in those settlement blocs and in east Jerusalem was a direct violation of previous US guarantees, which is why Obama found it necessary to deny that such guarantees ever existed.

Why not build on land that is currently undeveloped that is well inside Israeli territory, rather than disputed land? Instead of actively pissing the Palestinians off, and giving them a justifiable cause to the international community, just build on irrefutable Israeli land. Second, causality? Third, by your own admission, it was a violation of the agreement. Why not wait to rebuild the synagogue? It was in shambles for centuries, it couldn't last a few more months?

Here's the full story (links will be provided if necessary if your Googling ability isn't up to snuff). Up until Obama, for twenty plus years, negotiations went on without preconditions. When Obama came along, he wanted to be popular with the Arabs, hence the Cairo speech with its "accidental omissions" that amounted to full endorsement of the Arab narrative (omissions included the Jews' historical ties to the land of Israel but weren't limited to that). He approached the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the way his leftie advisors told him: more free gifts for Palestinians, more distance from Israel. So he offered the Palestinians that he would get Israel to freeze construction in the settlements if they were to reciprocate with a goodwill gesture of their own towards Israel. The Palestinians immediately adopted the demand to freeze settlement construction (they can't be less Palestinian than the US President, after all), but instead of a goodwill gesture of their own, they simply made negotiations themselves conditional on the freeze. Even were their demands met, they would return to strictly "indirect" negotiations- as in without actually being present in the same room as the Israelis, as opposed to the direct negotiations that were normal pre-Obama. Obama quickly learned that he's not going to get anything from Abbas, so he tried to move the goalposts and get the Arab states to offer Israel a goodwill gesture instead. (It's a repeating pattern in the "peace process"; sooner or later it comes to the point when the Palestinians have to do something, and they never do, so in order to keep the show running the "peacemakers" start looking for creative ways to make peace without the Palestinians having to make any peace). He was snubbed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and every other Arab "ally" he turned to. So he tried to obtain a settlement freeze through pure pressure, offering Israel nothing in return. That Netanyahu eventually agreed to a nine month freeze for the sake of salvaging what was left of the peace process, on condition that Obama would not demand extension after that. And there was a freeze for nine months (another thing no one remembers), during which the Palestinians did not even try to return to negotiations. During the last weeks of the freeze, they held a couple of "indirect" sessions after which they demanded more freeze time. So Obama broke the deal with Netanyahu and demanded more freeze. That wasn't well received, so he offered to sweeten the deal by offering Israel a squadron of F35 fighter jets. Fine, said the Israelis, but this time put it in writing- and all of a sudden the generous offer was no longer on the table (a textbook scam attempt).

Every President wants to be popular with the Middle East, that's where they get their oil from. However, complaining about omissions. I could complain about Obama not talking about why Egyptian restaurants are nice for falafel. It has no relevance to the purpose of his speech. His speech was to reach out to the Muslim community, not the Jewish one.

So, Obama said that he would try to make Israel do a gesture of goodwill if the Palestinians would do a gesture of goodwill, and the Palestinians took it out of context and started demanding it by themselves. It's only a surprise that the Palestinians didn't think of it first.

Meanwhile, Obama made a pompous speech in the UN that mentioned how he expected to welcome a Palestinian state as a new UN member next year. He meant that it would happen after a peace agreement was signed, but the Palestinians figured that they didn't need a peace agreement; they'd just get UN membership without stopping terrorism or giving up on their effort to destroy Israel. Their campaign for UN membership actually used the video of Obama's speech. At that point Obama finally began to realize that things weren't working out according to the plan and that the Palestinians were going to become a state without him playing the lead role. It was from that moment on that he began to sound somewhat pro-Israeli in his speeches, long enough to thwart the Palestinian statehood bid, and then quietly shifted the focus of his foreign policy to the Far East- the one corner of the world where he hasn't yet committed any truly epic blunders (he made a fair share, just not as epic as in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas).

Somewhat pro-Israeli? He threatened to veto the measure. How more pro-Israeli could he get? He has directly said that the way that Palestine should become a country is through negotiations.

Mahmoud Abbas, by the way, explicitly stated multiple times that the main reason why he insists on a settlement freeze is because Obama introduced it as a demand and now the Palestinians can't afford to back down without looking like they are, you know, making a compromise.

Then, if this is the case, Netanyahu should demand an act of goodwill, that the Palestinians seriously want to negotiate. Blithely ignoring them up to the past week or so to build more settlements is not very diplomatic.

Obama had two choices: support an ally and signal to the rest of his allies that he takes alliances seriously, or demanding from the get go that dictators surrender to the will of the people. He did neither; he supported Mubarak while he was strong and turned agressively against him while he was weak. One can't help but contrast it with the ever-so-cautious attitude of the Obama administration to dictatorial regimes genuinely hostile to the US, such as Syria. Obama continued to portray Assad as potential reformer and Syria's best hope for democracy until pretty much the rest of the world turned against the Syrian regime, and only then did Obama reluctantly join in on demands for regime change. Basically, if you're Obama's enemy, you're safer and you will be treated much better than if you're his ally.

So, you convict him of the same crime that Shimon Peres did? January 31, 2011: "We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak. I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East." I mean, he's following the same line as the Israeli President.

I would argue that NATO and the UN wouldn't necessarily want to mess with Russia over Poland, especially with nukes in the picture. But the point of the exercise was to send Eastern Europe the message that they're now at Russia's mercy and can no longer count on the US for protection. The message was received; not much love for Obama in Poland these days.

Geopolitically, every Eastern European nation is at the mercy of Europe. The Russians have the energy resources.

Back in my days, the term was "betrayal".

Obama can't betray the United Kingdom. You can't betray a country that you don't belong to.

If you can't find the label for it, that's no reason to file it under "foreign policy".

Except that it deals with a foreign country, and therefore gets served under foreign policy. Foreign policy, by definition, is how your country will treat other countries. This is an example of US-Iraq foreign policy.

A foreign policy achievement would be something that improves the country's foreign relations. Withdrawing from Iraq did nothing in that department, not even with Iraq itself; in fact, the US had to COMPENSATE for it because it increased the vulnerability of US allies in the Persian Gulf, hence the recent stationing of F22s in the Arab mirates.

You're saying that the withdrawal of an army from a country does not improve the relations between the two countries? I say it does.

[Womble]

So, Clinton's criticism of a Japanese Premier over a base. This ruined relations with Japan? No. He's no longer Premier, due to high unpopularity, and there is a plan in place to move soldiers off the base as a way to appease the Okinawans, though they still aren't happy with the base. And now, Japanese-American relations are in the gutter? No. They're going along well, especially in the light of the US response to the 2011 Earthquake. So, no slice.

They're not in the gutter, but they're weaker than they were before Obama came to the scene. If you bothered reading the entire article, you would've noticed that come Obama, Japan suddenly started seeking self-reliance which would specifically exclude US as a guarantor of security. The reason is simple; they observed Obama's treatment of other allies, and decided that it was too dangerous to rely on America anymore.

Next up, Australia.

Heh. I suppose next you'll try Nauru?

Relationship with Australia was hard to damage seriously, especially since Obama showed little interest in that part of the world until his interest in the Middle East resulted in a comprehensive disaster. But he did what he could to do at least some damage. For one thing, he repeatedly cancelled his already-scheduled visit to Australia in order to visit other countries whose relations with Australia were, shall we say, less than perfect (such as Indonesia). It couldn't be interpreted as anything other than a snub. There are other things, ways in which the US-China diplomacy was handled which affected Australia in a bad way, but it's too early in the morning for me to remember everything. I'll add it later if you want.

Why not build on land that is currently undeveloped that is well inside Israeli territory, rather than disputed land? Instead of actively pissing the Palestinians off, and giving them a justifiable cause to the international community, just build on irrefutable Israeli land.

That's a nonsense objection on many levels. For one, the Palestinians claim ALL of Israel's land as "refutable", and the Obama administration has proven malleable enough that I can't honestly rule out them adoping the demands of Palestinian rejectionists to the letter. (Watch US State department spokesman refusing to declare that ANY part of Jerusalem, including the Western, within-the-line part which she is specifically asked about, is "irrefutably Israeli"). And then, of course, there's the obvious facts that the people who ALREADY live there have needs, and so long as they live there their needs must be provided for. It really is that simple.

Second, causality?

Causality of what?

Third, by your own admission, it was a violation of the agreement. Why not wait to rebuild the synagogue? It was in shambles for centuries, it couldn't last a few more months?

It was in shambles since Jordan's conquest of Jerusalem in 1948. And yes, it could wait a few months. Or years. Or centuries. And were it up to anyone but us it would never have been rebuilt at all, because there never IS good time to rebuild a synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, is there?

It was rebuilt because we wanted it rebuilt. And it exposed the demand to freeze construction in Jerusalem's Old city for the cretinism it was. If we can't build in a city where Jews were continuously living for thousands of years because for a brief 19 years they were ethnically cleansed from there, then where CAN we legitimately build and live?

The really ironic thing was that Obama's demand to extend the freeze to Jerusalem (despite his own previous assurances that it would not extend there) came on the eve of Passover. Gave "Next year in the rebuilt Jerusalem" a whole new sound all of a sudden.

Every President wants to be popular with the Middle East, that's where they get their oil from. However, complaining about omissions. I could complain about Obama not talking about why Egyptian restaurants are nice for falafel. It has no relevance to the purpose of his speech. His speech was to reach out to the Muslim community, not the Jewish one.

That's nonsense and you know it. In a speech dubbed "historic" before it was even spoken, there are no "accidental omissions". When a US President dedicates good chunk of the speech to the Muslim world's conflict Israel, it's absurd to claim that it doesn't matter how he constructs his narrative of how Israel came into existence. And Obama basically declared Israel as having come about as a direct result of the Holocaust while "accidentally omitting" any Jewish ties to the land that were older than that. Only a complete idiot would claim that it had no significance.

So, Obama said that he would try to make Israel do a gesture of goodwill if the Palestinians would do a gesture of goodwill, and the Palestinians took it out of context and started demanding it by themselves. It's only a surprise that the Palestinians didn't think of it first.

Not surprising at all. Previous US Presidents did not signal to the Palestinians that they could get away with something like that. Obama did.

Somewhat pro-Israeli? He threatened to veto the measure. How more pro-Israeli could he get? He has directly said that the way that Palestine should become a country is through negotiations.

If that is sufficient to declare someone pro-Israeli, then why not declare Obama an Israel-lover because he hasn't nuked Haifa yet?

Obama was defending not so much Israel as his own diplomatic stature. He was about to be cut out of the process, so he fought against a process that he himself inspired.

Then, if this is the case, Netanyahu should demand an act of goodwill, that the Palestinians seriously want to negotiate. Blithely ignoring them up to the past week or so to build more settlements is not very diplomatic.

No one was ignoring them. Netanyahu repeatedly implored Abbas to restart negotiations the way they were held before Obama- with no preconditions. But the Palestinians don't want to be seen talking to any Israeli. They just keep adding preconditions. At the moment, for merely gracing the table with their presence (in a strictly indirect way- talking through American intermediaries with no pesky Israelis in the same room), they demand:

An indefinite freeze on settlement construction.

Israel conceding Palestinian territorial demands (1967 borders) AS A STARTING POINT, not as something to be negotiated over.

Release of hundreds of jailed Palestinian terrorists, including heads of terror organizations.

EU and US endorsement of the unilateral Palestinian statehood bid should the talks fail (and the easiest way to get the talks to fail is for the Palestinians to not agree on any peace deal offered).

That's just to get them to the table. And if things begin to look like they might actually get all of the above, they'll add another precondition.

So, you convict him of the same crime that Shimon Peres did? January 31, 2011: "We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak. I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East." I mean, he's following the same line as the Israeli President.

So? Peres is to Israel what the Queen is to Britain; he doesn't decide policy and his declarations amount to squat all. The people actually deciding policy in Israel remained pointedly neutral throughout the whole affair; not our business so long as the peace treaty is maintained. But Obama's actual state position is a different matter. Moreover, you won't find Peres describing Syria's Assad as a reformer and Syria's best hope for democracy- a position which the Obama administration has repeatedly voiced even as the rest of the world condemned his massacres.

Geopolitically, every Eastern European nation is at the mercy of Europe. The Russians have the energy resources.

In other words, it was right and proper to throw them under the bus because, well, they buy Russian gas so they're Russia's property?

Somehow, no other US President followed your, pardon my French, logic.

Obama can't betray the United Kingdom. You can't betray a country that you don't belong to.

But you can betray a friendship.

Except that it deals with a foreign country, and therefore gets served under foreign policy. Foreign policy, by definition, is how your country will treat other countries. This is an example of US-Iraq foreign policy.

That's ridicuously thin and you know it.

You're saying that the withdrawal of an army from a country does not improve the relations between the two countries? I say it does.

And you say it on what basis? Can we see some actual evidence of relations improving, or are you... oh my God, are you taking it on faith?

[Goose]

Heh. I suppose next you'll try Nauru?

Well, you did say any ally, so sure, why not Nauru?

[Gatefan1976]

Personally, I think with all due respect to Womble, he has no idea how Aussies view the difference between Bush Jr and Obama.

[Womble]

Personally, I think with all due respect to Womble, he has no idea how Aussies view the difference between Bush Jr and Obama.

But, politically speaking, who gives a rat's tail? It's not about whether Aussies find Obama's public persona more likeable than that of Bush; it's about whether or not the alliance with the US has grown stronger or weaker in real terms.

[LtColCarter]

But, politically speaking, who gives a rat's tail? It's not about whether Aussies find Obama's public persona more likeable than that of Bush; it's about whether or not the alliance with the US has grown stronger or weaker in real terms.

[aretood2]

Personally, I think with all due respect to Womble, he has no idea how Aussies view the difference between Bush Jr and Obama.

Just a little curious here, what did Bush "Jr." do to Australia? I'm afraid that I didn't become aware of world events until the last two or three years of the Bush administration.

[Gatefan1976]

Just a little curious here, what did Bush "Jr." do to Australia? I'm afraid that I didn't become aware of world events until the last two or three years of the Bush administration.

Nothing, it was not an observation on foreign policy, more a perception *of the individual* based one.

[Col.Foley]

You are incapable of using quote tags???


It's a mash of IDEA's


Yes, being careful IS good, but doing nothing or actively supporting it is WRONG.

...Are you?

True.

Global government should be based on unicorns.

Its always nice to wake up to some top quality comedy.

Noooo thank you. You can keep your broken, dysfunctional government to yourselves, thank you very much.

Is there honestly a Government that is not currently broken and dysfunctional? One that is not under oodles and oodles of debt? One that is a bastion of human liberty and freedom? One that generally leaves their citizenry alone without either trying to enslave them, regulate them, or provide for their every whim? (thus driving up the debt) Is there not currently a Government that is raising taxes, that advocates more spending, and is actually trying to get their fiscal house truly in order?

And note I did not say that I want to trade our Government and use that as a basis...I would not wish our Government on anyone. I basically said, or mean, the foundations of our Government. Ultimatley Womble is right Global Governnance is a bad idea, but if we are to do it there is only one system that I would be willing to advocate as the basis of said Government.