Superior intelligence capabilities!?

Only in the last few days has the US bombed a village in Pakistan Ayman al-Zawahiri al-Qaeda's deputy leader based on superioir intellegence. Numerous inhabitants were killed, and guess who was not there; Ayman al-Zawahiri.

We went to war with Iraq because they had WMD which could be lauched against us in 45 minutes of a strike being ordered.; they has WMD which could be launched against its own people...........; they had WMD development programmes; They had had WMD development programmes for but it appears they have destroyed them all. Oops maybe our intelligence was misinturpreted or just plain wrong.

Who can forget this one: 'United States officials have blamed intelligence errors for the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.' Their map was out of date!

We have 'extraordinary renditions' which send supsects to third party regimes for intellegence gathering. However i would have thought that the USA would have learnt from it's own history with various 'Police Actions' that you can torture most people into saying almost anything.

All of which are grist to the anti-USA (anti-western) mill.

Having work for US Corporations, travelled and worked in the USA, dealt with US Armed forces stationed in various countries. I have found (and I generalise) the US news media parochial to the extent that it does not cover news events outside its own city or state let alone outside the USA, and the people to be insular to the point of xenophobic. For example it is not uncommon to meet US Airmen who throughout a three/five year posting to the UK with their family have never left the Airbase. Yet the USA is the only world super power and it scares me.

9/11 was the first time USA got to see the end effect of their overseas policy and the reaction was knee jerk and naive. Suddenly terrorisim was bad, supporters of terrorism were bad, any state which sponsored terrorism was a legitimate target, anybody who disagreed with the Presidents viewpoint was nothing more than a terrorist, and the result was a war on terrorism. But not an ideological was to dispell the myths and misnomers and win hearts and minds but actual physical war first against Afganisthan then Iraq.

I would like to make a small point here. I grew up through several decades of terrorist bombings perpetrated by the IRA. An organisation funded in no small part by US citizens supported by the US Government.

Having digressed a little, I shall return to the topic. One thing that many governments, and the US government in particular have failed to grasp is that businesses are there to make money (or in the case of Enron appear to make money). They care little about us or the environment except for getting us to buy their products. Yet many governments, including the UK Government, whose job it is to look after our interests and those of the environment, have fallen in the trap of believing that looking after business will in turn protect their citizens by giving them jobs.

Thank you Atomchik for re-enforcing my point, you are as nation insular with little concept of the rest of the world, the consequences of your actions and how your actions are viewed out side the USA.

Let us take Bananas, we (the UK) have had for many decades agreements with small Caribbean islands (formal colonies and dependancies) to take their banana crops, thus keeping their economies alive. However the large US corporations have baulked at this as unfair trade. The argument being that if these islands can't produce banabas cheaply enough to compete openly on the world market then they should not be growing bananas, as a result we can nolonger have these agreements.

Now let us take steel, to compete in world markets we (the UK) have (at a great cost to our steel workers) made our steel industry leaner cleaner and greener and capable of producing cheap steel. However when we sell this to the USA at less than the bloated, dirty US steel industry can produce, we are accussed of dumping and are served with relatiatory trade sanctions.

It thus appears to us foreigners that if you Americans can produce it cheaper we have to get out the industry and buy products produced by your corporations, but if we produce it cheaper you place tariffs on our products to make them more expensive than your own. Thus bolstering dirty, uncompetitive industries, and allowing them to survive long beyond the point at which they should have reformed and restructured.

Yes this restructuring is painful, in the 1980's we lost many jobs as businesses restructured and, or failed, but now we have higher levels of employment than we have had for many decades, and we remain competitive on the world market, something that US governments do not appeared to have allowed to happen, relying more on protectionism than fair trade. Also we saw a freeing up of the jobs market making workforces more flexible when the powers of the unions were curtailed and the closed shop abolished.

We now face a new threat from the Chinese manufacturing industries and the Indian IT and call centre industries. Though in the case of the latter there is some what of consumer backlash, brought about through a lack of local knowledge by operators and the lack of ability to do anything other than to stick to predefined scripts. As a result some large corporations have started pulling back call centre facilities and using the fact as part of their advertising campaigns.

Oh and by the way the reason why I am no longer employed by a US Coorporation: The wife of the last Democratic President. So don't preach to me about raising standards for workers abroad. Thanks to good old Bill setting Hilary to look at medicare and a policy of encouraging US Corporations to pull back jobs from overseas divisions into the USA I was made unemployed.

I'm not "you Americans" either. For me, the political choice is vote for the party that hates me to my face, or the one who hates me behind my back.

Keep in mind that WCG members are probably not a representative cross section of any countries population.

Your earlier posts did not offend me, batchboy. My words were sincere: As were yours in your last post. Thank you, though, for the offer of apology. It was generous and I do appreciate it.

It appears to me that we share many views which might be worthwhile to discuss further. In fact, doing so would allow me to finally respond to your earlier post on the ID thread. (Not responding has bothered me, but any response was so complex that I could not find a way to phrase it.)

Moving on …

Indeed, America does find itself within a rather nasty conundrum, my friend. Now, [para] ‘if we can keep our heads when all about us are losing theirs and blaming it on us.’ …

Unfortunately, time constraints limit me to address only two general observations (at least for the time being).

The heart and soul of our U.S. national character, values, legal system and even literary influences are both an extension and a hybrid of our older, more reserved, older brother: England and the Commonwealth. Australia and New Zealand feel as though they are our, at times totally incorrigible, first cousins.

Regardless of all of our differences, most reasonably attributable to governmental policies over which the average citizen has little day-to-day control, family is the ultimate source of strength and comfort in an often hostile and indifferent world.

Like it or not, we are family. We all need to just deal with it.

Now, if there was one sentiment you expressed that immediately resonated in me, batchboy, it was your statement that ‘the fact that the U.S. is the worlds only real superpower scares [concerns] you’. This statement echoes some very deep concerns that I share with you as well. Although, I am not certain, for the same reasons.

Not that this is an entirely accurate statement, from my perspective. While China has wisely chosen a course of political/military isolationism (Taiwan being somewhat of an exception), China would be a formidable obstacle to any US delusions of world domination. Furthermore, if pressed, the USSR would be strategically compelled to ally itself with China. This obvious fact is not overlooked by the world’s governments; least of all, or so I hope, would be our own. Even at this time in history I do not believe that the US is truly the only superpower in the world today. Unfortunately, we are viewed by most of the world as though we are.

This perception is dangerous enough through the resentment and fears that such a perception reflexively creates in peoples and governments of other nations. But the significant threat, as always, is the danger and damage that this belief could inflict from within. As a guiding belief, especially in the hands of right-wing Christian fundamentalists, this notion could easily prove to be catastrophic.

Well, batchboy, I’m out of time. Since neither of us knows where this topic will eventually lead, I propose that we resolve ourselves (and all other participants) to at least have some real fun while we're at it.

Well, batchboy, your posts have caused me to reflect more deeply on matters political than I have in quite some time. These research/reflections have left me with some serious concerns. This is why I have not been able to respond as I had intended. I realize that I have far more questions than I do answers.

Any neutral or independent thinker would, a priori, be concerned about the right wing Christian fundamentalist movement. This is most evident from a historical/political analysis of the impact of Christianity on civilization. Over time, my concerns have been deepening.

While, BB (before Bush), I had felt compelled to vote along Republican party lines, primarily as a reaction against a broad "pan-liberalism" epidemic that verbally advocated freedom, but which actually fostered social, political and legal irresponsibility and intellectual vapidity. My recent investigations have lead to the startling conclusion that I may have inadvertently let the wolf in through the back door. This right-wing Christian movement is far, far more dangerous to the US (and the world) than I had imagined. Equally as disturbing is the reflection that Liberals may be incapable of advancing a realistic and practical agenda with which to counter the “radical right”.

It has also become disturbingly evident that many of the criticisms of the US which I had here-to-fore summarily dismissed, contain more truth than my own nationalistic sentiments could allow me to admit. (This occurred in large part because I could not just dismiss your observations in spite of the pejorative tone of your earlier posts. My intuition correctly lead me to recognize that there were issues of value imbedded within these posts. So thank you, batchboy.)

As a result, I would like to ask you and other members of the forum who are willing, if they would share their observations and analysis of US domestic and foreign policies, social/moral values and what you consider to be our "national character". Keep in mind that I must at times "bounce ideas off of you" if only to facilitate deeper analysis. This does not mean that I may actually "agree" with things that I say. It only means that I need to ask the question in order to evaluate the other side of a particular issue or viewpoint.

Given our more "familial" relationship with other English countries, you “Brits” appear to me to be more capable of responding with greater "empathetic neutrality" and yet at the same time, more stinging clarity. It is difficult to envision how my explorations can proceed further without this assistance.

I only ask that, besides your sincere honesty, you do not let yourself be affected by the noise that this topic will inevitably generate. I would prefer that we endeavor to simply stay focused on that which is relevant and ignore that which is not. I utterly reject the recent proclamation by Mr. Bush that it is un-American for people to speak freely.

Finally, it would not personally offend me if no one chose to follow up on this post. This may not be the best venue. It also may be that these are matters that are best discussed (or can only be discussed honestly) in private. And so on. Please know that these considerations have crossed my own mind, as well.

While I fully realize that we may not succeed in building the self-critical, empathetic and open dialogue that I would like; I feel compelled to at least try.

On a more "topic appropriate note": I am interested to see what happens in about one hour. While it is a bit of a knee-jerk-correction, the trend line of the price of crude certainly is not.