Of course - it didn't prevent Churchill and others from working for an alternative. What was popular was pretending that negotiations with fascist tyrants would prevent war. Having the PM claim the opposite encouraged such wishful thinking. Do you really not understand this? If you don't, you might try reading Churchill on the subject. If that's too much, you could always get the HBO movie that was done on it last year - I thought they did an okay job.
LOL.. You are so clueless! I now see what type of person I'm dealing with here. I feel sorry for you, trader556. That could quite possibly be the worst comeback I've ever encountered. LOL FRuiTY "bumpa$$" PeBBLe
in a true democracy like the UK popularity counts to some extent. due to a lack of it Churchill was voted out of office right after the end of WW II.
Thanks for this excellent post, trader556... it included a few who I wasnt aware of... The Israeli connection with and influence on US foreign policy is totally sickening... Free Palestine!
Of course Iraq is about oil, but certainly not some silly concessions for some contractual partners that they can get, have already, want to have or have not. It is definitely not about the economic grip on the exploitation licenses, but on the strategic grip on oil as energy itself. The US would never go into a war that costs some hundred of billions, only to sell Iraq oil most expensively, i.e. most profitably. They go to war in order to keep the oil price sustainably inexpensive and to purchase as cheaply as possible. So the war is not about oil corporations but about car drivers. And we all do profit since oil is dealt with on a world market. As the price for Bagdad oil sinks, so sinks the price for Russian petrol in our car-tanks. In that respect Russia as as oil-exporter has in fact an economic interest in peace - which is not true for France and Germany. Provided Iraq can be made quit OPEC, increase drastically its exploitation volume and create additional capacities to be added in case of a rise in prices on the oil world market, then Iraq could become as decisive to the price of oil as is Saudi Arabia today. He who controls Bagdad need not be scared of upheaval in Saudi-Arabia and must not arrange with a questionable clan of Kings, because Saudi Arabia, where the Al-Kaida terrorists come from and live (and not in Iraq), can be controlled quite comfortably from Bagdad.
Well, I think then that we partly agree. There are problems, however, with viewing the US as an empire - both practical and theoretical. The practical problem is that the term itself is a loaded one, and is inevitably greeted with reflexive reactions. The theoretical problem is establishing a useful definition of "empire." To me, the European Union looks more like a classic empire, or empire-in-formation, than the United States and its sphere of influence and interests, but I'm happy to acknowledge that the US might represent a different kind of imperial power, one based more on the extension of its political-economic system than on literal expansion of its sovereignty. However one feels about the term, the real issue, it seems to me, is that the US is in the process of re-defining its interests in a way that leaves no Cold War Era alliance, organization, or strategic presumption unaffected. 9/11 brought home the realization that key aspects of the late 20th Century security system - which included tolerating or even propping up a number of deeply dysfunctional Middle Eastern regimes - might not only be inadequate in the 21st Century, but extremely dangerous. Recent events seem to confirm further that, in the final analysis, even the crown jewel of the post-World War II security system, the United Nations itself, qualifies as a "terrorist-supporting regime." If we hold, with President Bush, that any state that shields the implacable enemies of civilization must either change its behavior or be held accountable, can a political organization that protects and sustains those states and those behaviors escape the same test? My point isn't that we need infiltrate Special Forces units around First Avenue and 46th in Manhattan - though they might very well encounter a "target-rich environment" - or even just that we need to re-think our relationship to the UN, and therefore to the global community that it represents. The larger implication, which also follows from our prior discussion, is just about as difficult for any of us to face as it is unavoidable - for it's far easier to focus on the pros and cons of Iraq policy, or on infighting at the UNSC and despair over the French and Germans: Though the US and its allies cannot take on the whole world at once, they may have no choice but to take on the whole world in time.
Turkey Suspends Vote on U.S. Troops By HARMONIE TOROS The Associated Press Monday, February 17, 2003; 3:31 PM Turkey's prime minister on Monday ruled out a parliamentary vote to allow tens of thousands of U.S. combat troops on its territory until Turkish and U.S. officials agree on the conditions of the deployment. Parliament had been expected to vote Tuesday, and Washington has warned Turkey that time is running out. A delay could hamper U.S. plans to open a northern front in an Iraq war. "We are not going to the parliament tomorrow (Tuesday)," Prime Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters in Brussels, Belgium. "We have some concerns on economic and political issues." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21350-2003Feb17.html