Foreign Policy
 

It would seem that over the last 8 years, U.S. Foreign Policy has morphed into a one dimensional concept involving who we can invade or generally fight against. There has been a complete lack (EDIT: not enough, thank you Rammstein) of diplomacy during this time, both with our friends and our enemies.

Think back to the months after September 11. The entire world was with us.

now look at our position in the world today.

Foreign Policy.

People say that McCain will be better than Obama in terms of Foreign Policy. But McCain's FP experience and stated strategies are a mirror of the last 8 years. Have the American people been conditioned to think that Foreign Policy is ONLY about kicking butt, taking names, blowing things up, showing American might?

Isn't Foreign Policy more than that? Strengthening alliances, creating new ones, challenging foes to join and reap the benefits of membership.

before you answer that, look at the reception that Obama has received while overseas. From all appearances, "durn furiners" WANT to be our friends again. want to work with the U.S.

McCain's Foreign Policy is about catching flies with vinegar. Obama is all about honey. Who will catch more flies?

You can't really be this ignorant.

I couldn't agree more...so many softballs, so little time. You really need to find a better balance in your view of the world and what's important.

don't be a hater Rick

You too Paul. have an opposing viewpoint you'd like to share? keyboard is right there. not worth your time? thanks for stopping by.

You cannot possibly mean this.

I don't post this kind of stuff...nor do I believe in your premise.

The, "if John McCain is a fool, do you think Obama will be better" syllogism is inane. You assume much about the world, a luxury.

I will elaborate- its a debatable point whether or not our policy with Iraq was the best choice. To make a statement that there has been a "complete lack" of diplomacy during the last 8 years with the entire world is just wrong. If you changed this to "not enough" then you are back to debating within reason. I would disagree, but we would be in a bubble of possibility, so to speak.

Ok, I'll give you not enough. carry on.

Surely you jest?

Perhaps Shaun's abbreviated comments are a bit naive but to call him ignorant? That IS being a hater. That comment has no place if our intent is discussing differing points of view. Its only intent was to be demeaning.

Overall, I agree that this Administration has not shown much of a grasp for effective foreign policy. Bush's (or was it Cheney's?) cowboy, shoot-from-the-hip,"...you're either with us or against us" statement felt good to us in our collective pain and outrage following 9/11 but was certainly not the approach a President with any true understanding of diplomacy and its impact on implementing an effective foreign policy would make. Those were not the words of a national leader, those were the angry words of someone reacting.

In those days following 9/11 we had the concern and indeed the sympathy of a huge portion of foreign nations and have managed to summarily tick most of them off. In addition, I feel that we have CREATED more future terrorists by our policies than we have likely stopped with our actions. The damage done will not be easily undone whether the incoming President is Obama OR McCain. Just my point of view. Don't like it? Fine. At least I have a point of view without resorting to calling names.

Well, it is kinda ironic that we're N. Korea's sworn enemy and yet at the same time are their largest food donor. Even more ironic that we have no diplomatic relations with them but have probably had more negotiations with them than any other country in the last seven years. Let's see, we've also reestablished diplomatic relations with Libya, despite Shaun's claim.

Do you know the definition of ignorant? Sorry, but when someone posts something as uninformed as Shaun just did, I'm gonna call it what it is and it has nothing to do with hating.

Well I just look outside my window and compare what has happened over the last 8 years to our position in the world to where we were, and where we can be. McCain a fool? No, just dangerous as he is one-dimensional, like Bush. Obama the savior? No, but I am surprised at how welcomed he is around the world. What does that tell you about the last 8 years and how we are seen in the world?

Stating assumptions about the world opens up challenges and discussion, and learning. I have never taken the safe road, the easy path. Here I learned what the word syllogism means.

no Rick, you're a hater. from your many posts on how much you want to torture people, you are clearly a hater.

Good point. Where were we eight years ago? We had a bogus appeasement agreement with N. Korea that they violated every day while we pretended nothing was going on. We sent our Sec. State there to be Kim's propaganda tool and pose for photos. We had refused Sudan's offer to hand over bin Laden on a silver platter. 9/11 was well on its way to happening partly because of this. Our president ordered pointless missile strikes to deflect attention from his own scandals, having nothing to do with national security. Same president's most frequent WH visitors were both terrorists - Gerry Adams and Yassir Arafat. France liked us, which I consider to be scandalous in and of itself. And Iraq continued to buy off U.N. members and skirt Oil for Food sanctions, while we and the Brits enforced no-fly zones.

I'd say a lot has changed there and for the better.

Yeah, it's really hating to want to torture terrorists. Hey, I never said anything about torturing ignorant posters.

There hasn't been enough foreign policy. But that "not enough" focuses mainly on Iraq, and possibly on Iran. If those two countries were not so much a part of Bush's overall foreign policy, I'm sure the statement of "no foreign policy," or "not enough," would be factually incorrect, which it truly is anyway.

We have not cut ourselves off from the world at the behest of the current administration. Example: when was the last time Condoleezza Rice has been in the U.S. for anything other than a brief visit? She's always overseas, engaging in diplomacy.

It would seem you're not informed about US foreign policy -- beyond what MSM tells you (and tells you other people think of us).

We've had great successes in bilateral trade agreements with Latin America (except when our Congress has quashed them -- note, not the President, who supported bilateral trade agreements with Colombia, but folks like Nancy Pelosi). With Brazil, Colombia and Chile we've deepened economic and social ties and supported them in their fights against their own terrorists.

Our efforts to combat disease and support education and health programs throughout Africa have been very (thought not universally) successful. We've supported and assisted transitions to democracy in Ghana, Liberia, Mali and Mozambique. We brokered the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to end the civil war in Sudan.

We've achieved a strategic framework with an increasingly bellicose Russia. I assume you think we're somehow to blame for their harsh rhetoric and treating their neighbors as "spheres of influence" -- but we're not. And our alignment of interests instead of principles is nobody's fault. It's realpolitik.

We've engaged China on taking up its responsibilities in the global forum -- including to have them stop profiteering in genocide in Africa. China and Russia are the two prime examples of the parties whom you don't cajole or "diplomacy" into doing things, you engage and accept them as amoral competitors, b/c that's how they see you. They're not burdened with this post-modern guilt garbage and "oh gee, what will the world think?" navel-gazing. But they (and their fellow travellers) certainly know how to use that masochistic angst to paralyze certain Americans!

Syria is (nominally) out of Lebanon... and would actually be if the UN didn't effectively prevent their complete ouster. Qaddafi is playing ball. We're supporting democracy from Morocco to Pakistan, through means adapted to each situation. We aren't (nobody is) going to talk into Saudi Arabia and say some magic diplomacy words that will convince them to, overnight, get all liberated and hep. This "if only we were liked we'd get more results" crap is a triumph of ignorance over reality; over history. Hey, everybody loves the Swiss... how much to they dictate the global dialog or agenda?

Instead of acting "unilaterally" (cause that's the term for a coalition of more than thirty countries), we've engaged China, Russia, Japan and South Korea in handling the psychopath Kim Jong Il. We're close to a Northeast Asian Peace and Security Mechanism. Again, we didn't "make" Il or make him insane, but we're dealing with it as best we can -- diplomatically and multilaterally.

Bush supports expanding the Security Council of the UN ... which, while I have strong opinions about the inefficacy and hypocrisy of the UN, certainly bespeaks multilateralism and inclusion. We've continued to deepen our relationships with Brazil and India, as well as Indonesia and South Africa -- vast, multiethnic democracies whom we don't need to "push" on many issues. We've forgiven vast amounts of foreign debt to help developing countries get out from under leverage.

I realise that MSM isn't telling you every day that we've got great cultural, political and economic relations with much of the world, but we do. Our ties with Eastern Europe are potent and visceral.

Should we allow ourselves to be governed by foreign opinion -- or, more accurately, the opinion of a vocal and press-indulged minority? I don't have much faith your answer to that question is "no".

Look at the change in the heads of state in the much fellated and esteemed EU: Merkel and Sarkozy vs. Schroder and Chirac? And we're still hated? The world isn't "with us?" Grow up. We were attacked back when everybody loved us -- WTC bombings, USS Cole, etc. All pre-W, during this mythical halcyon period when the world loved us.

And there will always be those folks who will take shots at the US (1) to distract their people from what's actually wrong (the Mullahs); (2) for cheap political points (Chirac, Schroder and any pinhead sub-minister with a dream who gets near a microphone); and/or (3) because they have an adolescent love/hate relationship with the US and can't reconcile their own (real or perceived) inadequacies with our indifference to them.

Putting aside the McCain/Obama dichotomy (and that's too small a word). If anybody wants to run a foreign policy based on being liked, they're quite simply an idiot. Being liked can be a fortunate by-product of effective foreign policy, but it cannot be a material consideration, let alone the sine qua non.

JP