Breaking treaties, throwing off old friends and partners, ignoring our own constitution and the rule of of law creates an impression that the United States is unreliable, immoral and aggressive. It makes us less safe. Only shallow people think that our country can fight off the whole world. Only delusional people would want us to try. Our moral authority is not an impediment that we can or should toss off when it is inconvenient. It is an absolutely nevessary component of our national security.Well, duhhh!
When Archie the black labrador lost his owner on a lonely Scottish station, he proved his well-trained pedigree and jumped aboard the first train home. Not only did the dog catch the right train, he got off at the right station, the Mail on Sunday newspaper said. Owner Mike Taitt lost sight of Archie at Inverurie station, near Aberdeen in eastern Scotland, and was hoping someone would spot his tag and return the much-loved mutt. "He is a very intelligent dog," Taitt said. "When he could not find me, he simply took the right train home. He's been on that train before. I am convinced he knew it was the right one. But who knows?" Closed-circuit television footage shows the dog waiting for his master at the station before watching the Aberdeen to Inverness train pull in. Unable to find his owner, the black labrador decided to avoid a long walk home by nipping aboard the 20:38. He got out at the right stop, Insch, twelve minutes along the line to the bemusement of signalman Derek Hope. "There was a train conductor standing with Archie on the platform saying he had got on at Inverurie but didn't have a ticket," Hope said.And I searched for a photo of Archie but couldn't find one on the web.
In an example of a great mind getting right to the heart of a matter, [Fox commentator] O'Reilly wrote last week: "No one in their right mind would want Michael Moore, George Soros or Cindy Sheehan calling the shots in the war on terror." Granted. Then again, could they botch the job any worse than the people now calling the shots? [emphasis mine]
. . . war always shows up brightly in the emotional spectrum, and certain wars – lost wars -- burn like the fire of a thousand suns. Some people (most notably and locally, certain Red State citizens) obsessively re-fight them over and over again, generation after generation. Losers forever stand on the neck of history, jumping up-and-down, demanding a do-over. And when the banner the losing side fought under was hateful and repulsive, the lies and delusions that the defeated use to radically revise and prettify a murderous history and ideology into a glorious and noble “Lost Cause” also get passed down, father to son, like hemophilia. So look at the brief and bloody history of Iraq and note that...If this is correct, then the Civil War now falls well beyond my Statute of Limitations rule -- it happened to the great-great-great-great grandparents of the soldiers now in Iraq.
...it is a war began by a Southern President.
...it is a war began by rich men and fought by the poor.
...it is war sold to Americans as a Noble Cause.
...it is a war of pre-emption against a hated enemy that we were told we HAD to attack before it was too late.
...it is a war sold on the defense of our “way of life” rather than a specific, measurable, strategic objective.
And come the 2004 election -- an election was all about Iraq -- look how the nation split, right down the Mason-Dixon Line.
. . . The time is long past due the rest of us ceased our cowering and stood up to you Christo-fascists bullies. The hour has come round that we look you straight in your bulging, true believer eyes, and told you that we've had it with your smugness, with your blood-drenched crusades, with your victim mentality . . . It's high time someone told you outright that you must be suffering from holy water on the brain, if you think we can't see you for what you are: a klavern of counterfeit prophets waxing psychotic for other cretinous hypocrites. Also, you can cease playing the persecuted party, whenever someone stands up to you -- because we're no longer buying that ploy. . . . When did the golden light of the sun abandon its position in the eastern horizon and begin rising, each morning, from out of your silly, neo-Iron Age asses? . . . every last one of you Apostles of Perpetual Psychosis -- listen up. Given the self-evident fact that your beliefs bring little relief to your own troubled souls and have, on the whole, served to engender tragedy worldwide, don't you think it's time you gave it a rest for while. In other words, this is a polite way of suggesting to you that you shut your pie-in-the-sky hole and take stock of the things you're saying -- because your utterances are becoming sicker and sadder, by the hour. If not, you could, at least, in the words, of Tom Waits, 'Come down off the cross -- we can use the wood.'
. . . we are dealing with an American political system currently steeped in the ideology of "empire." It recognizes few rules, adheres only to those treaties that are expedient to basic interests, and believes that the only political currency that counts is the exercise of raw power. In its mildest form, it practises a la carte bilateralism, co-operating only when it wants to, and when it suits short-term domestic or international objectives. In its bad days, it simply follows a strategy of "take no prisoners," "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead," "don't tread on me," "America First," or any other of the clichés used by ultra-patriots. These are the extant policy directives from the White House. While most Canadians responded with dismay to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, few could quite grasp that the same cavalier, imperial attitudes exemplified in Washington's rejection of various agreements on disarmament, its fierce opposition to the International Criminal Court, its indifference to climate-change warnings, and its undermining of the U.N. would prevail in our continental relationship as well. There is a chronic and dangerous failure to fully appreciate the shift going on in the political demographics of the U.S. and how this change affects attitudes not only toward Canada but also to the broad U.S. approach to its international role. The reality is that political power is shifting to the south and west of the United States, bringing with it less understanding or interest in our country and certainly an anti-internationalist notion that the U.S. can and should go it alone. Growing, as well, is the attitude — especially prevalent amongst congressional Republicans — that the U.S. should legislate extraterritorially to compel other countries to abide by its decisions. Anyone who thinks that neighbourly proximity brings favours or privileges is living in a dream world. In the changing landscape of U.S. politics and policies, Canada lacks the necessary traction . . . Let's face it: This is a painful and uncertain time in our relations with the United States. Muddling through from crisis to crisis won't work. Neither will listening to the chorus of continentalist claptrap promoting more U.S.-Canada integration — look no farther than the present disputes to see where such policies have landed us — or the calls for protectionism and retaliation that can still be heard from the Left. It's time for new policies and tough action to shift our trade and security strategies away from a preoccupation with continental matters to a more global footing.I think we will need more than just new trade policies to deal with this challenge.
