Malaysia Tribunal finds Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld guilty of war crimes

Albert Di Salvo · May 16, 2012

donsutherland1 said:
If one widens the lens of history beyond the past 500 years, one finds some great powers in Asia e.g., under Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire was a world power.

Another example was the Abbasid Caliphate that the Khanate destroyed.

The period to which I'm referring is the roughly 100-year period often termed the "Concert of Europe." During that time, there was only one fairly significant war in Crimea. Unpopular as it might be, I would suggest that the outcome for that period was quite superior to the period that began with the establishment of the UN. Since that time, there has been two to four fairly significant wars (Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, and Iraq War) and numerous smaller wars, including some very bloody civil wars in parts of Africa, the Balkans (twice), Middle East, etc. My guess is that careful management of the balance of power (where sovereign states focus on their interests) is a better approach to stability than world organization (where states with vastly different interests are expected to ignore those interests to find the common ground necessary to preserve stability).

The Concert of Europe required Metternich and Tallyrand to put it together. I don't know if such people exist any more. The Concert of Europe did provide a period of generalized peace as you note. The Crimean and Franco-Prussian Wars were the only breaks in the order. The Concert of Europe also ushered in the period of Pax Britannica. I wonder if Pax Britannica had anything to do with the maintenance of the era of generalized peace between the great powers.

Some historians maintain that an era of generalized peace requires a hegemon rather than a balance of power. The hegemon will of course fight peripheral and limited wars, but other great powers are deterred from directly challenging the hegemon through total war.

China's rise is not without barriers. China has a rapidly aging population (far larger issue than the U.S.). China's political structure faces challenges presented by the country's continuing evolution (the recent internal turmoil highlighted by the removal of Bo Xilai offers a symptom of that larger challenge).

If the Chinese Communist Party is to maintain power the Chinese economy must continue to grow and lift significant numbers of Chinese out of poverty. Toward this end, China must control the sea lanes from East Africa to the Yellow Sea. That will bring Chinese interests and Indian interests into conflict. Their rivalry will be the great contest of the first half of this century imo. If China controls those sea lanes India's rise will be aborted. India cannot allow this if it is to become a great power.

Finally, a focus on the national interest is not necessarily a bad thing. It can facilitate prioritization. It can avoid the overreach and consequences of overreach that are an inherent risk of a pursuit of ideals beyond the constraints of the national interest.

I agree. Yet I would take things a step further. The greatest factor in international relations for the foreseeable future will be ethno-nationalism, not internationalism. If I am correct in this belief western style internationalism is going to take a back seat in the new era.

America can engage in the balance of power in a multi-polar world...even as first among equals. But to do so it must husband its strength and resources. This requires avoiding armed conflict with other great powers which would dissipate that strength and those resources.

Gimmesometruth · May 16, 2012

Meathead said:
The Center for Public Integrity reporting on The Malaysian War Crimes Tribunal. Now that's funny, or rather it would be if it weren't so pathetic.

You are extremely confused. It is citing the falsehoods by the Bush admin on Iraq....not a response to the MWCT.

TheDemSocialist · May 16, 2012

Albert Di Salvo said:
What binds us together and makes us fellows in your opinion? It isn't a matter of consanguinity, blood, family or clan. It isn't an ethnic tie. It isn't shared experience, identity or consciousness that brings us together. What unites us and makes us fellow Americans?

Is it the legal technicality of citizenship based on an accident of birth? Hutus and Tutsis are fellow Rwandans, but are mortal enemies.

Or is it an idea that ostensibly unites us? If so, what idea would that be? A shared belief in equality of outcome? I don't think so.

Or is it a shared belief in individual liberty? Once I would have said adherence to the ideal of individual liberty united us. But in my opinion that ideal is dead for about half of the country.

Does multiculturalism unite us? I don't think so. Multiculturalism produces separate identities and division.

Are we fellows because we both subscribe to a notion of Locke's Social Contract? Maybe at one time that was true, but not now. From my perspective the Social Contract has been breached. And as everyone knows, once a party to a contract commits a material breach of that contract all other parties are relieved of all of their obligations to perform further under the terms of that contract. I believe the Social Contract has been breached in a very material fashion. Thus, I recognize no further legal obligations to others under the terms thereof.

For the life of me I can't think of a single thing that makes us fellow Americans in any meaningful sense.

What does this have to do with anything?

TheDemSocialist · May 16, 2012

American said:
A lie has never been proven, so stop alleging it as though it was true.

Really?
In there own words set to a nice little tune: How to create an Angry American - YouTube

You've got nothing, and if you do let's see it. You just feel like he lied.

Are you kidding me :doh

Albert Di Salvo · May 16, 2012

TheDemSocialist said:
What does this have to do with anything?

Maybe not much. But I was struck by the exclusivity of consciousness of different groups living in this country. I have no use for George Bush, but I am astounded that President Obama gets a pass from many people who would like to see GWB tried for war crimes by an international tribunal. After all, Bush had American law on his side when he made the mistake of invading Afghanistan.

And GWB had the benefit of American law on his side when he made the mistake of invading Iraq. President Obama has no law, American or international, supporting his drone war or violation of the War Powers Resolution over Libya. President Obama is a war criminal imo.

This made me think about how the people in this country have drifted apart. That's why I posted the statement in this thread saying that the people in this country should use the terms "we," "our," and "us" sparingly or not at all. It was that post to which you responded. And your response got me thinking further on the subject. That's why I made the post in question.

Sorry for the digression. My bad.

Grant · May 17, 2012

Albert Di Salvo said:
China has played the West for fools. Over the course of the last thirty years they have stolen intellectual property or coerced its transfer on a scale unknown before in history. This is one of the reasons why China has been able to seize the process of globalization from America and the rest of the West. Entire industries have been stolen.

The Chinese understand Americans, but Americans do not understand the Han Chinese. Anyone who has read the Art of War should be able to comprehend what is happening. Sun Tzu and my esteemed Taiwanese Taoist Uncle Reedak who recently joined this site say the same thing...if one knows one's self and one's enemy one need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles.

The Chinese have our number and have used it to game the free trade system and the notion of globalization on which it is based. And we are clueless about the Chinese...except for a very few Americans.

The Chinese are completely predictable. Their culture tells us what their actions will be.

The Han will never accept the role of status quo stakeholder in the international order conceived and imposed by the West over the course of more than a century. That's because they don't consider it legitimate.

They will engage freely in duplicity with us because they know there is no cost in doing so. No price to be paid. The Han objective is quite clear. They intend to rebalance the world order based on recreation of the Middle Kingdom with the Chinese Communist Party serving as a new dynasty. I am not only relying on what I have read and studied in coming to this conclusion. I've talked with members of the Chinese Communist Party that consider me family. They teasingly call me "lofan."

The Chinese will be able to reestablish the Middle Kingdom in the form of a sphere of interest extending from east Africa to the Persian Gulf across the Indian Ocean to Indonesia and Australia/New Zealand and up through the South China Sea/the Philippines to Taiwan and the East China Sea to the Yellow Sea, Korean Peninsula and the Sea of Japan. Guam is going to become like Fort Apache.

The Russian Far East will come under Chinese control indirectly and will serve as a continuing source of natural resources for the Han. About 2025 it's estimated that the Chinese military budget will exceed the American military budget.

Russia and China will compete for influence and control over the resources of the Central Asian states. India and China have spheres of influence which overlap. The contest between India and China will be the most dangerous. It will be made in the Indian Ocean and in the Himalayas.

Europe will be a backwater in a state of regression. Europe won't be a player.

America can withdraw to the Western Hemisphere and use weapons sales and other trade to maintain its influence, but America should not fight foreign wars ever again. If necessary America can sow dragon's teeth for the Chinese that will keep them busy. While generally neo-isolationist, America can still have a role by estalishing its own sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere.

The other element that has to be considered is the wildcard of chaos that will be introduced into the new order through the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and ballistic missile technology. Chaos will introduce unknown players and unforeseeable events that may bring the great powers into conflict.

China is also doing to many areas of the world what they did in Tibet. They are simply moving in and will, with time, eventually gain control.

I live part of the year in Vancouver Canada, which is now largely Chinese, and the other part in Costa Rica, where the Chinese are also gaining a foothold, or at last toehold. I must add though that the Chinese to this point have also made very good citizens in Vancouver. I would welcome them far more than members of the religion of peace, for example.

Their involvement in Africa is quite well known and looked on with some suspicion but, again, their investments in Africa are doing more to help that continent than generations of foreign aid ever did. The Chinese in Africa: Trying to pull together | The Economist

Churchill once said something about a riddle wrapped in an enigma and that may well be the Chinese also. Maybe much of there international investment is for the good, but there's no point in being a mug either. It seems to me that they know far more about us than we know about them and are able to exploit our weak spots. And we have only ourselves to blame for those weak spots.

Grant · May 17, 2012

donsutherland1 said:
If one widens the lens of history beyond the past 500 years, one finds some great powers in Asia e.g., under Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire was a world power.

Yes, but their power was more localized than international. Certainly the Vikings and Alexander the Great had some international impact also but it was the larger ocean going ships constructed by the experienced maritime nations that allowed international explorations to heat up the rivalries on a much larger scale.

The period to which I'm referring is the roughly 100-year period often termed the "Concert of Europe." During that time, there was only one fairly significant war in Crimea. Unpopular as it might be, I would suggest that the outcome for that period was quite superior to the period that began with the establishment of the UN. Since that time, there has been two to four fairly significant wars (Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, and Iraq War) and numerous smaller wars, including some very bloody civil wars in parts of Africa, the Balkans (twice), Middle East, etc. My guess is that careful management of the balance of power (where sovereign states focus on their interests) is a better approach to stability than world organization (where states with vastly different interests are expected to ignore those interests to find the common ground necessary to preserve stability).

Yes, i now understand your concept much better, thanks. The UN, it seems to me, has allowed international dictatorships a forum they would otherwise lack. It has not served the democracies well.

China's rise is not without barriers. China has a rapidly aging population (far larger issue than the U.S.). China's political structure faces challenges presented by the country's continuing evolution (the recent internal turmoil highlighted by the removal of Bo Xilai offers a symptom of that larger challenge).

Yes, and their one child policy, mostly boys, has not helped either. That's why I look at them as a short term power, historically speaking. For the longer term it will be Islam.

Finally, a focus on the national interest is not necessarily a bad thing. It can facilitate prioritization. It can avoid the overreach and consequences of overreach that are an inherent risk of a pursuit of ideals beyond the constraints of the national interest.

Yes, we've seen the consequences of empirical overreach before.

leftofabbie · May 17, 2012

TheDemSocialist said:
Really?
In there own words set to a nice little tune: How to create an Angry American - YouTube

Are you kidding me :doh

Powerful video, thanks for linking.

Grant · May 17, 2012

TheDemSocialist said:
What does this have to do with anything?

If you read what he was responding to you would understand better. It has to do with a great deal if you give it some consideration.

Malaysia Tribunal finds Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld guilty of war crimes

Albert Di Salvo

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Albert Di Salvo

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Malaysia Tribunal finds Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld guilty of war crimes

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