...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Friday, June 27, 2003
      ( 9:17 AM )
 
Why Doesn't The Rest of the World Trust Us to Rule Them?

Thanks to Maru (again, who endlessly provides very cool links) for this article in The Toronto Star by Gordon Barthos which clearly shows how the rest of the world can see what liars Bush and Blair were and how they want to change things at the UN so that big bullies can't get away with stuff like attacking countries based on false evidence... and the article also shows how stupid Americans still are:

Bush's credibility would be lower still, except that a sturdy
core of invincibly ignorant people — one American in three — is
convinced that these weapons already have been found. Not so.
More than 1,400 U.S. and allied experts have scoured 230 Iraqi
sites for months without turning up an atom of plutonium,
anthrax or sarin.

Oh, don't they think we're so grand! ...

A recent Ipsos-Reid poll found that 71 per cent of
Canadians feel Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was right to
refuse to join the war. Before the campaign, 66 per cent felt
that way, but during the conflict opinion was evenly split.

Internationally, British Broadcasting Corp. polling has found 60
per cent of people have a negative view of Bush, and believe
the war was wrong.

Barely one in four feels America's military might is making the
world safer.

So it's no surprise that Canada and other nations are now
lobbying for U.N. Security Council reform, precisely to check the
ability of the major powers to have things their own way.

I'm not talking about being liked by the world - we can't be liked by everyone. No, I'm talking about our credibility on the world stage. What we may have had is quickly slipping away. That BushCo doesn't care about it not only shows the dangerous roads this administration is willing to lead us down, but it shows a total lack of diplomatic skill or understanding of the fact that we exist on a world stage, not in our own little universe. This country has a centuries' old tradition of isolationism except when it serves our interests - and we can't just bury our heads in the sand and pretend that it doesn't matter what other people think of us, or even what led us into this quagmire in Iraq. We have to confront the truth that it was a bad judgment call, and that our leaders lied to us to try to bully us and the world to go along with it. It's not a consistent policy (obviously, we're not invadeing N. Korea or Iran, who we are also accusing), and our government obviously had no realistic post-invasion plan for occupying and taking care of the country once Saddam was gone.

But see, all this is old news. The thing is, if the other countries in the world start getting together to compare notes on how they don't trust us and how our credibility has tanked, then we can't just ignore that. Our entire economy is based on globalization, thanks to the past few administrations. We cannot sustain our continuously weakening economy if the rest of the world decides to not play with us anymore because they presume we will always cheat. If "free trade" conservatives really thought about it, they would want Bush out too.

The article concludes with a very plain speaking prediction:

This reflects a growing lack of confidence that the U.S.
and others can be relied on to do the right thing.

Pushing war, Bush and Blair shouted the roof down, claiming
Saddam was itching to hand terrorists weapons of mass
destruction. Whatever weapons may eventually turn up — and
some will — it is now abundantly clear that neither knew for a
fact that what he was saying was true. It was all hype.

Yet Bush and Blair blew away the Baghdad regime on a bogus
pretext, and tried — largely unsuccessfully — to bully the
world into joining them.

If their leadership, credibility and trustworthiness are fast
eroding, they have only themselves to blame.

The American people will only have ourselves to blame if we can't get rid of this Administration and turn things around. It's up to us.

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