DFAIT logo partnership The logo for the by design elab, an independent research development and production think tank specializing in online forums for policy development, incubated in 1997 at the McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto
DFAIT Home Site Map Help Policies Partners Feedback Netcast Français
 
Welcome
Message from the Minister
Dialogue Paper
Answer Questions
View Answers
Discussion Forum
 

Values and Culture

Thank you for participating in the Dialogue on Foreign Policy. The interactive web site is now closed. The Minister's report will appear on this web site once it is released.

This Forum is bilingual, and participants post messages in their language of choice.

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: cfallon

Date: 2003-03-10 16:47:14


I understand and enjoy the clever logic of your argument, however...

1) I do think we are at war right now. As a Quebecer, I can assure you a society can be at war with itself without a single cut or kill. And the costs of such a cold war are enormous.

2) Also, on motivation - I rely on the constitution of each country as a measure of ultimate motive. I expect the citizens of each country to hold their leaders accountable for each tenet of their constitution. Its not sexy or clever, but that's how I feel.

3) I don't want to go to war. But I don't see how we lift sanctions on Iraq without assuring ourselves that there is no threat of a psychotic regime from using its immense purchasing power to kill many hundreds of thousands of people. I believe the genocide that Saddam has unleashed within his country is a dress rehearsal for what he'll do as soon as he returns to pre-sanction conditions.

Am I wrong? I HOPE SO!

Reply to this message

Show in topic

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: critictrue1

Date: 2003-03-10 19:36:28


Whose security concerns us?
Perhaps if the USA had not sold or given Iraq weapons of mass destruction we would not be in the present situation.
Why are we concerned about missiles with short ranges?
Is the goal to create a democratic state with Hollywood so that the Iraqi people will be able to see how we killed evil Saddam followers and helped the people. (US has bases in over 2/3 of the countries in the world. (Like the Roman Empire)
Even in Quebec, Canada we had terrorists and a desire to be free. ( I thought they were free in a free country.)
Lastly, Louis Riel that most honorable criminal that all Catholics and Francaphones need to thank.

Those that went west to KILL the devil received 1/2 section of land but the Metis, Poundmaker, Big Bear? > Castle Loma is a result of the moneys to be made.
Iraq needs to be destroyed for our security.
Intelligent people believe this?

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: cfallon

Date: 2003-03-11 15:38:26


Uhh, no one says Iraq needs to be destroyed for our security. But let me ask you:

Do intelligent people think the sanctions aren't destroying Iraq as we speak?

Do intelligent people think Saddam is not destroying Iraq as we speak?

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: banquosghost

Date: 2003-03-10 19:56:04


"I do think we are at war right now. As a Quebecer, I can assure you a society can be at war with itself without a single cut or kill. And the costs of such a cold war are enormous." This is rather specious of you really.

"I rely on the constitution of each country as a measure of ultimate motive. I expect the citizens of each country to hold their leaders accountable for each tenet of their constitution." Me too. Where's the US Congress Declaration of War. That's their constitutional prerogative, not the POTUS.

"But I don't see how we lift sanctions on Iraq without assuring ourselves that there is no threat of a psychotic regime from using its immense purchasing power to kill many hundreds of thousands of people." Same way we did with a much more well armed Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. We contain and refuse to abandon diplomacy.

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: cfallon

Date: 2003-03-11 15:44:47


Okay, so we agree that the motives of a country are ultimately derived from that country's constitution. We're getting somewhere.

I don't think containment will work. It did not work with the Soviet Union, we defeated them by outspending them, not containing them. They were quite successful at expanding their sphere of influence over large swaths of the globe.


You are correct, I should not have mentioned Quebec. I was a little over-zealous.

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: banquosghost

Date: 2003-03-11 20:08:55


"I don't think containment will work. It did not work with the Soviet Union, we defeated them by outspending them, not containing them. They were quite successful at expanding their sphere of influence over large swaths of the globe." OK...let's outspend Iraq. Pretty easy to do I should imagine. The Soviet Union is a curious artifact of history now. Whether we outspent them or deterred/contained them or whatever. We *did not* send 3000 Cruise missiles onto their heads. Maybe because we knew they had 3000 to send right back at us. Irrelevant really...the SU is no more and outright war was never declared.

Where did we get exactly with respect to constitutions? Can you 'splain to me what we can understand about the US motives by quoting from the US constitution and then advancing an argument about motives?

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: cfallon

Date: 2003-03-12 11:06:56


Inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The "root causes" of terrorism are people living without access to these rights.

When the US acts to keep these rights from people of other countries, it acts in a manner that contradicts its principles and therefore is in bad faith.

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: banquosghost

Date: 2003-03-12 13:36:48


That's the Declaration of Independence actually. I do, however, take your point because in many ways the D of I is a more useful historical document when it comes to trying to understand some of the roots of the US psyche.

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: cfallon

Date: 2003-03-12 16:45:44


Banquo, you are too sharp for me!
You're rights, its the D of I.

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: banquosghost

Date: 2003-03-12 20:01:25


"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."...is the bit most relevant to our discussion here I think. This is in the second paragraph, not much more than a couple of sentences beyond the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness you alluded to.

This is then made more complex by the articulation of the theory of Manifest Destiny: "In 1845, a democratic leader and influential editor by the name of John L. O'Sullivan gave the movement its name. In an attempt to explain America's thirst for expansion, and to present a defense for America's claim to new territories he wrote:
".... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federaltive development of self government entrusted to us. It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth." (copied from http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/manifest/manif1.htm)

So we have the "right of the people to alter or abolish" their government coloured by "the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole...", then continent, now world?

Food for cheap pop-psychological thought, ne? :-)

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: cfallon

Date: 2003-03-13 15:29:00


Quite interesting stuff.

I think you are correct that the current update of that statement is "the world".

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: critictrue1

Date: 2003-03-12 09:15:39


The Berlin Wall came down mostly because peoples behind the Iron curtain were able to receive telecommunications from the west. East Germans modified their TV receivers and saw how west Germany lived for example. People lived off the state but stopped producing. No longer did they believe the lies of their government and one day the American public will wake up as well and realize that Ari and the boys hold dual citizenship.

Reply to this message

Anti- Americanism

Contributor: cfallon

Date: 2003-03-12 16:47:43


Critictrue1:

This, along with that other comment regarding the Rothschilds comes across as a cryptic dig at a what? Some conspiracy that controls media and finance...

I really don't understand your point.
Dual citizenship with what country: US and Israel? Is that your implication?

Reply to this message