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The Forum > Article Comments > In the shadow of three Presidents > Comments

In the shadow of three Presidents : Comments

By Ciaran Ryan, published 9/5/2008

In this US election cycle, the shadows of three past presidents - Reagan, Clinton and Bush - loom large.

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Danielle, you say you are not typically right-wing, yet the comments you make about left-wing academics, makes me wonder why you seem crazy enough to follow persons like Bush and Cheney, whom have not only lost their only non-American supporters like Tony Blair and John Howard but are now forced to rely on in Iraq, former Baath Party Sunnis turned insurgents whom they have put on the US payroll - and given the ridiculous term The Awakening, the Washington Post making a laughing stock of it all.

I hope you don’t mind, dear, but I am adding a commentary based on a question asked in the Guardian newspaper recently why American leaders have developed a ridiculous love of war, while Europeans are glad to have seen what they hope is the last of serious wars.

Something we don’t hope for, but a full-bodied occupation for a time might have made the Americans more humane.

In fact, most of the present Israeli Jews have experienced so much terror, it is a wonder they too seem so ready for war - which of course, only makes people like the Iranians more ready to attack them.

Maybe the possession of atomic weaponry as with both the US and Israel only makes national leaders more arrogant.

As the German philosopher Immanuel Kant proclaimed after becoming disappointed with Napoleon.

From this day on not one personage nor even one nation under God should ever be trusted to keep peace in this world.

Thus came the Kantian idea of Perpetual Peace represented by a chosen and elected federation of world nations of arranged equal power with multilateral leadership.

Certainly both the League of Nations and the later UN were based on the Kantian Formula, but the problem has never been solved of preventing the world’s strongest power taking over, as happened partly with Great Britain with the League’ and now America with the UN.

As Kant predicted so long ago, Danielle, one big power running the show, with just one in charge, can never be truly libertinian.
Posted by bushbred, Saturday, 17 May 2008 5:36:57 PM
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bushbred,

The UN, like the League of Nations is a farce - just look at the composition of the UN; then state that Israel's interests are fairly represented. Arab states are not only amongst the weathiest countries in the world, but also are among the most influential in the UN.
Look at the regimes of some UN countries. They must form queues outside the loos just to wash the blood off their hands befor a sitting. I'm sure Kant didn't envisage this type of community being one of "Perpetual Peace."

Israel has never threatened nor sabre-rattled whatever nuclear weapons it might have. However, nuclear capability is a deterence to attack. What was the left's view about Russia's nuclear capability and US' nuclear deterence. I believe this prevented WWIII.

WWII estimates of civilian deaths by conventional allied bombing are estimated between twenty to thirty- fold of the deaths from the two nuclear attacks on Hiroshima on Nagasiki.

Military experts state that the concept of nuclear weapons depend on application.

Access the site I gave you: FREE IRAN, Iranians do not want nuclear weapons. They openly state that President AhmadiNejad is insane - he spoke of his experience at the UN assembly when time stopped still, an aura surrounded him, and every face turned to him in "hope"; he also sends government communiques to some village, to be dropped down a well where some 1100 year old mahdi lives. AhmadiNejad believes that with the destruction of the present world, Allah will destroy all the nations except Islamic ones. Some very concerned Iranians fear that AhmadiNejad has annointed himself as the "prime mover" for this holy occurrence.

Iranians have requested the UN Committee and various international bodies that Iran be expelled from the UN until the Islamic Penal Code and other ethnic policies are removed.
But this has fallen, apparently, on deaf ears.

Incidentally, Iranian Intellectuals and dissidents wholeheartedly support Israel's right to exist.

I have just read a study on Palestine, which states that 80% of Palestinians would like the same system of democracy and government as Israel.
Posted by Danielle, Sunday, 18 May 2008 2:27:47 AM
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Palestinians travel from their territories to work in Israel because they then acquire the same welfare, medical and other benefits that Israelis enjoy.

Does the left actually know Israel's democratic policies, rulings - actual articles, how the Knesset runs, etc. Have they studied these in depth. Have they read the the findings of International Law on the Green Line, defence policies, etc ..

As I said, bushbred, I don't follow political lines, but think for myself. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the invasion of Iraq (Arabs are now presenting a solid case for
Saddam's WMD) it is pointless to return there. The situation is what should happen at present and in the future.

During WWII, complaints were made that the US didn't get involved early enough; now the reverse is made. ... You cite the “Guardian”. Incidentally, wasn't it the "Guardian" that stated that the late Princess Margaret had had someone's love child ...?

Read the quote I provided about Marx - and tell me this doesn't apply to left-wingers. I think it encapsulates them perfectly. If the left-wingers came out with a policy or program I thought sound, I would endorce it.

From my experience, however, left-wingers are ”elitist experts” - all "sound and fury signifying nothing ..."

Before trumpetting forth about the Middle East, they should have at least experienced stepping into camel excrement.

Incidentally, I don’t necessarily support all the right-wing policies either.

My opinion about politicians in general ....

I’ve had a cynical viewpoint about politicians since I was told by a minister that the KGB and the Vatican were collaborating together in bringing about the downfall of the USA by flooding their market with drugs. Even at 17 years I saw this as flawed ...

The saving grace is that politicians worldwide seem to have the same level of competency. A few have stood head and shoulders above others as to be true statesmen - but they are far and few between.
Posted by Danielle, Sunday, 18 May 2008 2:41:32 AM
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