Nationalism - as Hitler saw it...

[Groscurth]

[quote="Enrico Cernuschi"]Hi Groscurth,

as I said before Soldatenheim may be fiction but your prose is a B movie gangster screenplay. I think it will better for all to go back to military history.

Bye EC[/quote]


Try a less favoritism since you're pointing at only one person in a discussion off 3 on the same issue and all three with a pollite argumentation. Argumentation is not your best side isn't ?

But I understand you don't understand.

Try to intervene with something new. Iff not, my Einsteins quote is one for you. I want to hear argumentation, facts and frome people that have a good base to speak like Sid (altough we disagrea, a fine debater) Henrik, behlbc .) When you post, post usefull please, do not try to charge with that kind off phrases, because my vocabulary is rather fine tuned to make someone ridiculous (still with pollite phrases, you'll find out).
For the rest:
It is nice to see that there are still people that believe in B films. Think you would not survive in political debates with that phrase, it means "I close my eyes and things I do not understand are fiction."

Best regards,

Groscurth

[Henrik Krog]

Hi Sid

The US spent some ten years following the UN route and having its freedom of action limited by this voluntary compliance.

Im not really sure how much the Us had its freedom of action limited at all. During that time, nobody tried to interfere with US actions, and the UN was merely used to rubberstamp a sampling of US actions. Actually, I think the US benefitted from the fact that Europe more or less had gotten used to the US being in the lead, even after that leadership was not needed anymore following the downfall of the Soviet Union.

And now, when some European countries are beginning to find out they actually have some power to wield, some americans whine about it. I dont buy it.

I say "voluntary" because, since the demise of the USSR there has been absolutely no physical restraint that could be put on the USA by the rest of the world to force its compliance. [This unipolar world is likely to last until China get its nuclear/technological act together and starts throwing its weight about internationally. (God help us then, if the US and China clash!)..

Dont know how you define "physical", but economically, the UN has slowly been developing the power to smash the US economy.

As it is now, the US has benefitted anormously from the fact that, thanks to the dollar being the one thing closest to a universal currency in the world, the oil trade, and with it 2/3 of total world trade, has been going on in dollars.

That means that, as world trade expanded, no matter how the US economy fared, the US could print dollars and use them to cover its deficit.

Problem is, since the Euro came online in the late 90s, it has gotten stronger and stronger compared to the dollar. In 2000, Iraq switched to doing its oil trade in Euro, and both the Russian and Iranian parliaments have discussed doing the same with their oil deals. Venezuela has also moved away from the dollar. Throw in, that Saudi Arabia as late as this summer has strengthened its economic ties to Europe, and you have a quite scary scenario for the US economy:

Trade moves over into Euro. Countries around the world dump their dollars in favor of Euros. The dollar crashes, along with the worth of any assets foreigners own in US assets. As a result, they dump these assets as fast as possible, taking their worth down, too. In effect, you have a situation for the US not unlike Argentina a couple years back.

I have seen it argued that that was the main reason Bush wanted to invade Iraq, to stop the move while it was still in its infancy. Thus also the US-supported coup in Venezuela last year (it backfired), and the threatening noises towards Iran over nukes.

And that would also be the reason for French and German opposition against the war, and British support of it. The two former are in the Euro zone, the latter is not.

I wouldn't describe myself as "pro-war". I simply feel it was justified on this occasion, although probably not for all the reasons advanced by the UK government. The trouble is that there is no effective international mechanism for identifying and getting rid of demonstrably monstrous regimes such as that of Saddam Hussein.

Actually there is. At least there In the UN charter, there is provision for member states permanently putting forces under the control of the UN (not member states with UN blessing - see point 43.3), and following WWII there was a lot of talk about how this permanent force should be made up. Because of the Cold war, however, it just never came to be.

I am perfectly well aware that the arrival of Iraqi oil on the market will take the pressure off other producers and tend to help keep the price of oil down. However, that does not necessarily mean that this was the central US motive. Nor does it guarantee a fall in the price of oil (which, incidentally, would benefit not just the US and its supporters, but its opponents as well), because OPEC is not yet dead and demand is not falling.

Oh, once Iraqi production is cranked up, OPEC IS dead, trust me. Most of the Gulf countries have been running deficits since the early 80s. They cant take another serious drop in the oil price.

That'll teach me not to have kept informed on this subject since our last discussions in March/April. You are right. The UN oil-for-food account is now finished..

Its OK. I Cant expect everyone to obsess with this as I do :-)

Is the Development Fund for Iraq UN approved? It seems to be willing to channel money into it.

I thought that transpired from what I wrote last time. The US put a proposal to the Security Council containing provisions for the fund, and it was signed as resolution 1483.

Surely the fact that so much reconstruction activity in Iraq that would normally fall directly under the UN has now instead fallen under US control with grudging UN compliance is the perfect illustration of the total miscalculation of those opposing the overthrow of Saddam Hussein within the UN security council? They have effectively exposed their own vetos as worthless and the UN now has even less influence than it would have had if it backed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. .

Not so sure about that. Right now they are in a bargaining position thanks to the US begging for occupation troops to relieve their own, and many countries refusing to offer these unless there is a UN resolution. There is still a battle underway about this. We will have to see how that one turns out.

The US is hardly innocent in the demise of the UN, but the blindness of its opponents has been equally damaging. At least the US has the overthrow of Saddam Hussein to show for its efforts. What would they have had to show if successful in blocking the US? Saddam Hussein's survival?.

See above: economic superpowerdom.

Henrik

[Henrik Krog]

Dont know how you define "physical", but economically, the UN has slowly been developing the power to smash the US economy.

That should of course be "EU", not "UN"

Henrik

[sid guttridge]

Hi Henrik,

The US has had the power to do pretty much as it wants since 1990. However, rather than obliterate all its competitors on earth, it has continued to play the international game. It would have been easy to over run Iraq in the first Gulf War or any year since, but it chose not to do so.

I say "game" advisedly. The US, with 55% of global military spending, never had to play the game at all. Now it isn't. All France has done is expose the fact that the US doesn't have to play the game at all if it doesn't want to. It can make up its own rules and now is.

Some EU countries have some power to wield? I would say that Britain has retained a very marginal influence over US tactics, if not policy, and the rest have no influence at all. France is busy making grand verbal gestures about Iraqi governments within the month when in fact it bears no responsbility at all. It is mere words for international public consumption.

"The EU has slowly been developing the the power to smash the US economy." That is truly interesting. The US has long had the power to smash the EU economy, but has never done so. Yet the EU has slowly been developing the power to smash the US economy.

Who, then, cannot be trusted with real power? The US or EU?

Is the EU really just about old fashioned 19th Century geo-politics?

(I presume you did not mean to sound so aggressive, but it looked very threatening).

The Euro is no problem. If it gives the $ some competition this can only be good. The problem will arise if the EU gets its economic act together and uses the economic influence gained in an attempt to "smash the US economy" as you suggest.

I don't for a minute give any credence to your Euro/$ theory, but if I did I think you have just given pre-emptive US action some minimal rationale.

US problems with Iraq long predate the Euro. If the US wants to overthrow the self destructive populist government of Venezuela it could easily do so.

The Euro will fluctuate. However, it will only have real weight if the EU economies can get their act together. This will mean some degree of liberalisation on the American model. The EU is the world's biggest consumer market, but it is not the most productive.

I read in the paper this morning that every country that has held a referendum specifically on the Euro has rejected it. Is this true?

There are lots of coincidences in the Iraq war line up. Did you notice that the US was most firmly backed by the two European powers that have historically transformed entire continents in their own image: Britain and Spain? Or that it was opposed by those who failed in their colonial ambitions: France and Germany? However, I don't think that historically successful imperialism was a factor here and I don't think you should read too much into Euro membership either. Spain and Italy are members.

I wrote that there is no "effective" international mechanism to identify and get rid of demonstrably monstrous regimes. The UN has not proved "effective" in doing so. Iraq was due to chair the UN disarmament commission! Libya does chair the human rights commission! The first used gas against its own citizens, the second has just paid the French and US compensation for terrorism against air liners. How could it be effective against such regimes if it promotes them? That is a primary reason why the US is increasingly leaning towards extra-UN activity, although even now it still uses the UN fig leaf.

I think that when you talk of "power" in the hands of others than the US we should be clear that this is not proactive power. Only the US currently has that. The other veto powers only have the power to obstruct. I would describe it as "inertial power". It is therefore not really power at all. Just inertia. Even this has been weakened by their stance on Iraq. How demonstrably bad does a regime have to be before they can agree on its removal?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Groscurth]

[quote="Enrico Cernuschi"]Hi Groscurth,

as I said before Soldatenheim may be fiction but your prose is a B movie gangster screenplay. I think it will better for all to go back to military history.

Bye EC[/quote]

And how far are we now, two years later, Enrico, still speaking about "fiction" I am not Nostradamus, but I was close
You were wrong, proven, by history now

Yes, we mountainguides never forget. It is our job to remember factual situations. No hard feelings, I'll be in your great Val d'Aoste at Entrèves near Courmayeur with clients next weekend, dear neighbour (great snow now conditions)