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More of a query of John Boltons comments. If they start to pull out of iraq then they'll pull out of places closer to where we are? Where is that our Country, Economy- and was that intended as a threat from American ambassador to the UN!

Bolton always speaks it seems for effect - but presumably does think through when he so explicitly states what America under any Administration is about - the national self-interest of the US.

It isn't really about anything really high minded, save that when the U.S. does go to war it hopes that its armed forces do believe in what they are defending. It just seems though that particularly in Iraq that it's not clear what has been or is being fought for. Far better for 000s to die in freedom than to live under dictatorship, since the critical test is whether or not it appears that the U.S. is threatened. Trouble is that there is no sense or acceptance that this war has actually placed us all in a much more vulnerable position even if there have been no attacks in or on the domestic United States.

Bolton was very clear with his threat - if you don't support us you're against us, and we will dump you if you don't support us.

Can America afford to lose more friends?

If anyone was being snarky, it was Bolton himself, and being decidedly and characteristically unpleasant.

When interest rates rise next month, as they surely will, the housing bubble will finally burst. When are people going to realise that Gordon Brown's decision to give independance to the Bank Of England was the start of run away inflation which has pushed millions of people into record levels of debt. It will all end in tears. The trouble is we have the likes of Labour MP Angela Eagle extolling the so called virtues of Gordon Brown's economic 'miracle', which in effect is all smoke and mirrors, with no opposition from the Tory MP Theresa Williams or the Lib Dem MP Vince Cable. Of course Angela Eagle comes out with the old nugget that interest rates under John Major were 10%, but what she forgot to add was that you could buy a 3 bedroomed semi for £60,000 then. The same house now would probably cost you £250,000. I'd sooner have a 10% mortgage on a £60,000 house than a 5.25% mortgage on a £250,000 house. Gordon Brown has ruined the economy for the vast majority to appease the chosen few in the City and their economy. The two economies bear no relationship to each other.

Re John Bolton's comments: Oh John I'm so scared by your veiled threat to withdraw from places 'closer to where you are'.. to borrow a lovely Americanism "Don't let the door hit you on the ass".
There are lots of lovely Americans doing wonderful things, but you and your walrus top lip just came over as the worst example of stroppy, bullying idiot. buhbye now!

Don’t worry too much about what John Bolton says, he’s been wheeled out a lot recently on British TV as he’s one of those highly controversial characters that helps boost audience figures; he’s a figure of derision in the US also.

Has anyone told John Bolton that the Cold War is over and that threats about withdrawing from Europe probably aren't as effective as they would have been in the Seventies.

Presumably when he makes those threats, he'd be happy with withdrawing from the various US bases across Europe, including those in Italy, Germany and - lest we forget - Suffolk and Yorkshire.

I know that I'd be deeply concerned if the US Government were to withdraw from Menwith Hill or Fylingdales: how could they ever hope to maintain their programme of economic espionage on European companies?

The problem with Bolton's swaggering attitude is that he appears to be stuck in a delusion in which Europe (both old and new) needs American military protection, as opposed to the reality in which the United States needs Europe's continued hospitality to ensure the forward projection of its hyperpower hegemony.

After the fiasco of invading Iraq under false pretences and using bases such as Fairford (where it is a guest under NATO treaties) to prosecute non-NATO operations, someone (although obviously nobody in the current New Labour hierarchy) needs to remind the US Government and their various think-tanks that there is potentially an element of cynical scepticism building in the UK population over the nature of the so-called 'special relationship' and that a little more sincere humility might go a long way.

After that ill-informed schoolyard bully Bolton and his comments, ney rant, I emailed an America friend and begged him next election time to mobilise as many people as he can and get the Democrats back in.

What kind of world does he really think we're living in. 51st state, I don't think so, even if Blair might.

American presence in Europe, the sooner they are fully out the better. They make nice friends and allies, but friends that threaten you if you "don't toe the line" are no friends at all.

From what I can see, of the little I've been able to watch online of Newsnight & The Big Question, John Bolton at this point is the Bush-Point-Man for the UK- given he's no longer the never-US Senate Approved Ambassador to the UN, he is Britain's line to the current administration unless I'm wrong & he's merely the UK Media choice of Outlandishness. In any event, he's backed into a corner & can't defend much no matter how hard he tries.

the strategy for the uk economy is dependent upon rising house prices and immigration to keep wages low. Trouble is for the economy to stand still these need to keep increasing which is the mathematics of the chain letter?

interest rates only hit poor people who need debt to survive. high interest rates transfers wealth from the poor to the rich [who have savings].

if the usa was so dumb why did we support them? rather than back seat driving why not get out of the car? Did gavin lose it with Bolton? well maybe -why not try a bit more yoga and decaff and the knowledge that the science of questions is about asking the right questions and not a lot to do with asking bad questions with 'a macho tone'.

e.g robin cooks FO career, in my view, was destroyed on Newsnight when he couldn't answer what the political benefits of the euro were.

I think Bush was right in the clip to compare Iraq not to Vietnam but to Afghanistan. The Russians couldn't win in Afghanistan because foreign fighters arrived to join in the 'holy war', leading to the country becoming a base for the organisation which arose from these foreign fighters- al Qaeda- once the war was lost and the Russians left. Bush is right to think that an unstable Iraq will become a base for violent extremists if the US leaves. What he hasn't grasped is that the US has as much chance in Iraq now as the Russians had in Afghanistan. As long as they are there, they will be attacked. In the end they will leave, and leave an unstable country. Pity Bush didn't have this insight four years ago when he could have avoided giving the terrorists a major boost by supplying their new Afghanistan.

faciabish #2, not a threat from John Bolton but a warning. When you retreat from one line only to fall back, it becomes increasingly easy to retreat from the next and the next and the next. Taking a stand in Iraq placed the conflict far away trashing that country instead of one of ours. Tough luck for the Iraqis. The death toll and cost to America has been blown way out of proportion. For America, it has resulted in fewer deaths in four years than occurs in motor vehicle accidents in the US in one month and fewer wounded in four years than are injured in motor vehicle accidents in four days. The hundred billion dollar a year pricetag has cost America well under one percent of its GDP.

Dominic Pinto #3; that America acts in its own self interest should be self evident. Can you name one government of one nation which doesn't? That is the nature of the world. Those who are not willing to risk dying to defend their freedom will surely die in the bondage of slavery. That is what Europe taught America. That lesson was learned over and over again in the American Revolution, in two World Wars, and in the cold war. Europe may not have learned it but to America it was a birth pang.

Dear John #5; I'm with you. I regret Americans spilled so much treasure and blood defending Europeans in the past. We did that for ourselves to prevent the wars from reaching our own shores. Personally I couldn't care less what happens to Europeans, whether they wind up dying in Nazi gas chambers, dying in Soviet Gulags, or as slaves to the Taleban of the coming Eurabia. All of Europe isn't worth one American life. I think it would be political suicide today for any American politician to so much as suggest the US come to the aid of France in some new crisis. Europe should be on its own and pay for its own defense, something it never wants to do but it never shrinks from having a say on how those largely American paid for NATO forces are used.

Mark Solomon #7; the so called "special relationship" exists only in Britain's mind. British politicians play it like a fiddle catering to the need of Brits' to be loved by someone subsequent to centuries of crimes and piracies their Imperial empire was guilty of. Returning the Elgin Marbles and keeping your soccer hooligans at home on a tight leash might go a lot further.

Spooky Dreamer #8, the scenario of Britain as one or more American states is a nighmare too terrible for Americans to contemplate. Roosevelt explained it to Churchill and the reasons are every bit as valid today. Even English speaking Canadian Provences as states would be far more trouble for America than it's worth. We have enough states as it is.

csharp #10; It seems to me the UK far from being a back seat driver had one hand on the steering wheel and one foot on the brake. The dodgy dossier was British. The claim that Saddam Hussein could launch chemicial and biological weapons in 45 minutes was British. And the need to wait from September 02 to March 03 for the invasion was for the domestic political cover of Tony Blair, not George Bush.

Donald #11; the reason the coalition is losing the war is that it failed to anticipate that Iran and Syria would support and cooperate with an insurgency, a real blunder on our part. If as is likely, the escalation of the US forces called the surge fails, it might be best to abandon the region to allow them to fight a regional civil war. It appears that with Iran's program to build an atom bomb to destroy Israel and possibly use against the US, nuclear war with Iran looks "on the cards" and it would be best to get American troops far away from ground zero. They can go back later once the region is devastated if there is anything left worthwhile to go back to. Besides, an American pullout would have the benefit of pushing oil prices way over $100 a barrel precipitating the EU's bankrupcy and collapse and a return to $20 oil.

I'm glad no one was so hypocritical as to bring up the usual canard of international law which is only dragged out and dusted off when it suits America bashers and then tucked safely back in the drawer and forgotten so that actions like the European demanded American bombing of Serbia to end the genocide in Kosovo could take place. Everyone knows a Security Council resolution on that war would have been vetoed by Russia without the slightest shadow of a doubt. That minor formality was therefore ignored.

Do we have to have so much exposure to John Bolton on British tv? His stupid, offensive, childish comments to Gavin Esler were devoid even of entertainment value given that we have heard far too much of his ranting recently.
Why give airtime to somebody whose career has been a conspicuous failure - having failed to secure congressional approval for his appointment to the UN - but obviously thrives on just this sort of publicity? He clearly has nothing of interest or note to impart to the British public apart from his rabid views and is a terrible 'ambassador' for the US. Keep him off our screens! The US can do without such dreadful publicity!

Mark,

I didn't actually refer to the occupation of Iraq as a war because I don't accept that it is: it is called a 'war' by the Bush administration in an attempt to justify the US staying there by using the lexis of war- if it's a war, then the US must be fighting somebody, there will be a winner and a loser, Bush can claim the US will win in the end and that his opponents want to surrender and allow the enemy to advance.

There are plenty of reasons why the US is in trouble in Iraq: ethic division, resentment of foreign occupation, bad policy decisions after the occupation, and the arrival of foreign fighter determined to fight a 'holy war'.

The US is sitting on top of an ethnically divided country, occupying an area hostile to invaders, and continues to expose its flank to attack by foreign fighters enraged by the presence of the US occupiers, who arrive in Iraq with the hope only of killing themselves and a few Americans, or indeed a few Iraqi 'infidels'.

This is nothing like a war, and there can be no 'winner' in this occupation. There is no 'enemy' either, who will bring the front line closer to us if we 'surrender' in this battle. The foreign fighters who turn up in Iraq to attack the US have already attacked here in Europe: in the UK, in Spain and in Turkey: in fact they were our own citizens.

The US squandered the willingness of the world community to deal with the problem of Islamic extremism with the invasion of Iraq. That willingness turned to unwillingness- shock at what fellow Muslims had done in 9/11 turned to real anger at the US in moderate Muslim communities. What's worse is that the invasion of Iraq not only fomented extremism and anger, it distracted the world from the problem of the Taliban in Afghanistan, allowing that dangerous organisation to hide out, regroup, gain support and return.

The US is not fighting a war which we must all be grateful for and support: it's undertaken a foolish occupation inspired by a discredited ideology, with scant forethought of the consequences, a huge distraction from the problem of extremism in Afghanistan, which has ironically (but entirely predictably) left the US army exposed to attack by the same people they were fighting in Afghanistan, an occupation which has proved a major motivation in persuading more extremists to blow themselves up either at home or in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The US is not protecting us in the front line of a war against an enemy we should all fear if the front line moves closer to home- it's blundering around kicking a hornets nest, and the hornets are angry and stinging at home already.

I was dismayed by Gavin's aggressive tone with John Bolton. Gavin has usually been an urbane, serious, very deadly wielder of the well-aimed yet deceptively friendly question. He now seems to have decided to try and turn himself into the Paxman of 10 years ago. It's pity, because his former, less hectoring methods always elicited much more revealing responses, (and, as a bonus, didn't wind up the viewers too much just before bedtime). Please give us back the Gavin Essler of last year !

Donald #14; Characterize the conflict in Iraq any way you like. You must be British, you fail to recognize guerrilla war when you see it. I don't, my country invented guerrilla warfare, that's how it got its independence, remember? Well if it's not a war it's a pretty good immitation of one. Organized armed groups with lots of arms and some of them with plenty of money and constantly being resupplied from the outside. It's not exactly a clean clear cut war where one side's army meets the other side on a field of battle but one thing they all have in common and that is that they don't want to see the central government establish peace, tranquility, and their own supremacy over everything within Iraq's borders and they will use all means at their disposal to prevent it. With the central government at war with itself unable to arrive at a poltical consensus, some Americans are sending a message that America will not wait around forever protecting them while they squabble. Personally, I am ambivalent over whether or not there should be a pullout. I know if we do, we'll eventually have to go back. I think they really need time alone to kill a lot more of each other and make conditions so untennable for all of them that they will agree to practically anything to make the fighting and dying stop. They aren't nearly there yet.

The notion that the world was ready to take on Islamic terrorism is an illusion. In fact it has resisted it and continues to resist it. Before 9-11, the US was paralized itself. Yes there were empty words of sympathy after 9-11 from enemies masquerading as friends such as France and Germany and President Bush warned that the Taleban had to give up Al Qaeda or face invasion but the US waited an entire month to act. Had I been President and known Al Qaeda based in Afghanistan had been responsible for 9-11 the entire country would have been flattened by that night by waves and waves of bombers and rockets. Tora Bora would have been cinders within an hour. Bin Laden would never have made it alive across the border into Pakistan if he hadn't gone there already. There is no negotiationg with terrorists, you find them and kill them first before they kill you just like a chess game. That's how they set up the rules of engagement with them.

The US cannot count on anyone to stand with it in the face of conflict with agression. Sometimes it will have allies, sometimes it won't. It ceratinly can't count on the UN or so called international law. There's always someone somewhere who will cast a veto in the Security Council to block any action to change the status quo because someone has a vested interest in keeping it the way it is. Call the US a rouge state or put any other label you like on it, the US must be prepared to act alone to defend its interests and it usually cannot afford to waste much time in a futile effort to persuade the unpersuadable of its cause. For the US it's a matter of political will, not means. It's invariably gets into trouble not when it is strong but when it is weak, just as it was responding to 9-11 or for that matter heading it off, just as it was allowing Saddam Hussein to play games for 12 years with the inspections he agreed to at the end of Desert Storm, as it was with North Korea, and just as it is now with Iran. Look for President Bush to avoid taking action against Iran's program to acquire nuclear weapons during the remainder of his term in office, a weak Democratic President replacing him, and events which will precipitate nuclear war in the middle east sometime around 2009 or 2010 unless something surprising and just as bad happens first. The future looks very grim.

Mark,

you say the future looks grim, but it seems to me, from the posts here and previously, that you actually relish the prospect of further conflict with and perhaps even a nuclear strike on Iran. Then again, it may be that the future looks grim for you and you ilk, more than for anyone else.

I must admit that for quite some time I assumed that your posts to this blog were a cleverly constructed pastiche of the American extreme right - and perhaps even of John Bolton specifically.

Rather than point out the numerous instances of wilful historical revisionism and ignorance of international relations necessary to support the delusions of your PNAC-inspired discourse, your McCarthyite paranoia and Cold War hangover, and, most of all, hubris cunningly disguised as bravado, I'll content myself by pointing out that fewer and fewer of your countrymen seem to agree with your views.

Still, keep bellowing down the internet at us - I am sure I'm not the only person amused by your postings.

Keith

Mark (AKA John Bolton),

If America invented guerrilla warfare, why did they adapt it from a Spanish word. Or were they just striking another blow against the evil British Pirate empire?

Please keep me laughing,

Mark (another less nutty one)

"the so called "special relationship" exists only in Britain's mind. British politicians play it like a fiddle catering to the need of Brits' to be loved by someone subsequent to centuries of crimes and piracies their Imperial empire was guilty of. Returning the Elgin Marbles and keeping your soccer hooligans at home on a tight leash might go a lot further."

I'm sorry - how does that even vaguely qualify as a substantive post on the issue at hand.

I'll give you the fact that the "special relationship" is a specious concept: it only exists in the mind of the political classes and only one side of the relationship (sadly ours) believes that its an equitable partnership whilst the other half (yours) has continually been either late or non-committal on a great many issues over the years.

As for your self-righteous posturing about British imperial piracy; merely because the United States has executed its colonial ambitions through commercial channels (like Britain's East India Company way back) doesn't make your country any less guilty of the same behaviour - your country's continual interference in the affairs of Central and Latin American neighbours is just as shameful even if you're in a state of denial about that inconvenient bit of history.

Whether you like it or not, the current situation in Iraq is…

* There was no ACTIVE programme of WMD development in Iraq, unlike the programmes in Pakistan, India, Israel or North Korea. Patience with Hans Blix's UNMOVIC programme would ultimately have proved that point - but, given that the Bush administration needed the WMD bogeyman to justify invasion, patience was the last thing on anyone's mind.

* WMD was used as a pretext for regime change, which is specifically against the founding principles of the United Nations. No amount of post-rationalisation based on the benefits of removing Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athist regime from power can compensate for the blatant illegality of the pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign nation-state for the purposes of installing a more acceptable regime.

* There was no link between the Hussein regime and Al Qua'ida either generally or specifically tied to 9/11. This is now generally accepted by practically every sentient being in this part of the galaxy. Except for your Vice-President who still likes to trot out some fallacious link for the benefit of the congenitally stupid who cannot believe that the US was attacked by a rag-tag collection of Islamic extremists operating on a shoestring and whose activities were continually ignored by the FBI.

* The current US administration, operating under playbooks authored by think-tanks such as PNAC and AEI prior to 9/11, deliberately set out to destroy every institution in Iraqi society in the hope that a "green field" free-market economy would cause a fully-functioning multi-party democracy to spontaneously spring into being.

Sadly, the "Coalition of the Willing(ly Gullible)" were a couple of hundred of thousand troops light to fill in the vacuum that this strategy created and so we now have violence along sectarian and tribal lines endemic in every part of Iraq.

The so-called "surge" is merely pouring more gasoline on the fire - it doesn't do enough to solve the power vacuum (as its still massively under-resourced, not to mention hopelessly late) and it simply reinforces the perception within Iraq and the Arab community that the United States (and their allies) is an occupying power ruling the country through an illegitimate regime.

So, to sum-up, an illegal plan (!) executed with monumental disregard for the real needs of the Iraqi people or the genuine requirement to chase down the Islamic extremists of Al Qua'ida.

So now we have a Shi'ite crescent of power reaching from Iran to Lebanon, which is probably a great comfort to Israel given the positions taken by Ahmadinejad. Interesting to note that even the head of Israel's intelligence service was quoted as saying that, on balance, it would have been better had the invasion of Iraq not happened.

How many people (diplomats, senior military personnel, intelligence personnel) have to say that something was a stupid idea executed with the intelligence of a root vegetable before someone like you (who presumably believes that Fox News is truly fair and balanced) finally absorbs the fact that a wilful contempt for the conventions of the international community has resulted in the prosecution of a unilateral, pre-emptive war of occupation based on lies and deceit.

How many more people - whether military personnel or Iraqi civilians - have to die before you finally admit the plan was wrong and continually tinkering to achieve a "victory" (which we were all told had already been achieved during that triumphalist display on the aircraft carrier) is simply making things worse?

You may well subscribe to the "we broke it, we should fix it" school of thought; unfortunately, Bremer's plans for Iraq were so destructive that no "ordinary" Iraqi believes that a continuing American presence will cause anything other than more sectarian stress in the pursuit of Western economic interests.

keith fleming #16
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel should be wiped off the map made the headlines but he also said he wants to work for a world without America. That sounds like a direct threat to me, right where I live. Israel is called the little satan, America is called the great satan. How Israelis decide to deal with the threat of Ahmadinejad or whether or not they were unhappy about America's invasion of Iraq is their problem. Frankly, I would prefer to see a massive conventional strike against the entirety of Iran's military industrial infrastructure by the US than a nuclear strike. I believe a nuclear strike would be a world ending event causing so much harm to the environment around the world that ultimately none of us will survive it. Only the US has the capability for that large a conventional strike. If it reaches the point where Isreal feels its existance is threatened, it will feel it has nothing to lose by executing a nuclear first strike. Based on what most experts think, it has more than sufficient capability to deliver a world shattering blow and no one can stop it if it decides to.

Mark Jones #17
America didn't use the term guerrilla war, it just invented the method for confronting a large occupation army with hit and run tacticts.

Mark Solomon #18
My reference to the so called "special relationship" was in response to your comment about Britain being America's 51st state. Britain IMO is on the cusp with America. Western Europe has already been written off by many Americans as the enemy. Should British sentiment head in the same direction as much of it appears to be going that way already, it could wind up lumped in with the rest of them in Americans' view. Britain should not count on America as being forever in its hip pocket as an ally. That pocket is already frayed at the edges. Sir Christopher Meyer said on "The Interview" that the country America has its closest relationship with now is Israel. I agree but Israel knows political winds can shift suddenly and relies on itself for its defense. If Britain abandons its nuclear deterrant it's at its own risk.

I don't seen any comparison between European imperialism and the activities of large corporations, many based in America being some kind of pseudo imperialism. Companies like General Motors are traded on public stock exchanges and are owned by shareholders all over the world. Perhaps your own pension fund owns shares in it. In this era, most countries beg for foreign investment by large corporations because they bring much needed jobs and tax revenues even if they don't pay as well as in say the US.

America meddled in Latin American affairs protecting its security during the cold war preventing expansion of the Soviet Empire taking more slave colonies. Early on, it did not meddle in Cuba but allowed Castro's revolution to proceed and the consequence was a Soviet military base with nuclear armed missiles 90 miles off Florida which almost triggered a third world war. It came much closer than most people know and if it had come to that, none of us would be alive today.

Was there no active program for WMD development in Iraq in 2003? We don't know that for sure but then we didn't know about Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program until 1995 when his son-in-law who ran it defected to Jordan and announced it to the world. I'm not going to dignify the cat and mouse shell game Iraq played with happy Hans Blix and his Keystone Kops with serious discussion but it seems to me Britain's government was no more ready to trust its security to Blix ability to find WMDs than America's was. Besides, what little cooperation Blix got at the end was there was only due to the large military presence of the US in Kuwait and that couldn't be maintained indefinitely. Frankly I personally don't care how many Iraqi civilians die in this war, Americans supported it because they felt their own lives and country were at risk, just as I am sure your grandparents didn't care how many German civilians died in the war to defeat Hitler. I'll bet the consideraton given to civilian deaths in the bombing of Dresden was zero.

I don't agree with the way the war was fought. It should have been much sooner and far more ruthless. I don't believe in the America broke it, America should fix it Pottery Barn theory either. I also don't believe it is any longer in America's interest to remain in the UN and I think we should pull out and tell the rest of them to pack up and go elsewhere like Switzerland or Hong Kong or Timbuktu. I wonder how many more people will die in Iraq as a consequence of America's pulling out but again that's not of real concern to me.

If few Americans express my views in blog sites like this it's probably because they feel they are wasting their time at it. The basic sentiments of the country haven't changed much. The difference between American opposition to the war and opposition elsewhere is that Americans are frustrated the military outcome wasn't as hoped for and expected. Others are either indifferent to American security concerns or wish America harm. Those who do were never America's friends anyway and if nothing else, the war exposed many we mistook for friends as having been our enemies all along. From the acrimony shown here, many Brits are right in there with them.

Mark

1) I didn't mention the 51st State thing at all, so you probably need to backtrack.

2) No one denies that Iraq played "cat and mouse" with UNSCOM and then UNMOVIC. However, Blix's final UNMOVIC mission was progressing - albeit slowly - given that Iraq's WMD programme had been almost totally degraded by the previous inspection missions to the point where it was almost impossible to prove a negative.

3) America's meddling in Latin America had as much - if not more - to do with economic colonialism than it did with fears of Soviet expansion. However, even in those cases where the fear of Soviet influence was a key factor, what gives the United States the God-given right to subvert the will of the electorate of a sovereign state or are democratic decisions only valid if they conform to the interests of the United States? Maybe you can parse the following quote from Henry Kissinger and tell me where the so-called American commitment to self-determination exists: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

4) "Frankly I personally don't care how many Iraqi civilians die in this war, Americans supported it because they felt their own lives and country were at risk, just as I am sure your grandparents didn't care how many German civilians died in the war to defeat Hitler. I'll bet the consideraton given to civilian deaths in the bombing of Dresden was zero."

I wish I could express some surprise that you don't care how many Iraqis die in this illegal war. Your country has gone from claiming the right to self-defence from WMDs (disproven) to citing a link with Al Qua'ida (disproven) to saving the Iraqi people from a despotic regime (reasonable, however monumentally illegal).

But your rhetoric - which I would argue represents the feelings of the 28% who still believe in this administration's totally bankrupt handling of the "war" - gives the lie to this insincere "concern".

If you really wanted to make Iraq a better place, every innocent Iraqi life lost would be as much of a tragedy to you as every American life. But it isn't. That says far more about you and your personal ethics than anything else that you've said.

On another point, equating the unilateral, pre-emptive invasion of Iraq to the prosecution of WWII which was driven by the aggression of the Axis powers is utterly disingenuous: the strategic bombing of Dresden was a human and a cultural tragedy, but it was necessary in the context of fighting a symmetrical war against a similarly equipped enemy.

Americans supported GWII because it was sold using deceit, exaggeration and mendacity and their emerging ambivalence is significantly motivated by a growing mistrust of a regime which appears to be riding roughshod over the will of the American people and over the conventions of the US Constitution and the protections afforded by that document.

Fraud, torture, internment without trial, sacking justice officials who don't agree with the ruling junta's political agenda and nepotism sound like the behaviour of the kind of regimes that civilised nations should be trying to change rather than adopting as standard behaviour - what are you actually trying to defend here.

Mark Solomon #20
1. The reference to Britain being a hypothetical 51st state was made specifically by spooky dreamer in posting #7. Sorry I ascribed it to you, I must have been confused because it seemed to me your views were similar.

2,4. There seems to be a lot of very short memories when people discuss Iraq, even among American politicians and media pundits. Fact; the Director of the CIA George Tennet who was appointed by a Democrat, President Clinton told President Bush that it was a slam dunk that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. Should he not have trusted and believed him? Who should be in a better postition to know and advise the President? Fact; President Vladimir Putin of Russia, an opponent of the invasion told President Bush that his intelligence services had information that Saddam Hussein was planning a terrorist attack on the US on American soil. These facts are in many public archives, I am sure you will have no problem finding them. Were these two proven right and President Bush not acted pre-emptively, after an Iraqi attack on the US, those American politicians like Hillary Clinton who now say they made a mistake voting for the invasion would have been screaming the loudest calling for his impeachment saying that he was too stupid to put two and two together to get four, had learned nothing from 9-11, and did not uphold his sworn duty to protect the US from harm. He has no sworn duty to defend the UN or so called international law, his sole responsibility and constituency is America.

I don't want Iraq to be a "better place." What I want is for Iraq to be made safe...for America. I don't care whether or not it is made safe for Iraqis. Why should I? I agree with your assessment that the invasion was not well planned or executed beyond the initial invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. It appears there was no planning for the contingency of a sustained insurgency supported by Iran and Syria. Perhaps American strategists never thought Iran and Syria would be that stupid. Ultimately, those nations will also pay a price for it...when America leaves and the ensuing chaos spills over their borders and they find themselves in a regional war. Frankly, they are lucky they are not at war with the US right now over it. I for one don't think it's something for America to be concerned about. Perhaps the Israelis will wind up nuking Iran to destroy their atomic weapons program the way they blew up the Iraqi nuclear reactor built by the French. You'll note that the main rhetoric in American politics regarding a withdrawl has only to do with the cost of American lives and money, not Iraqis except insofar as the number of Iraqi deaths during any given period is an indicator of America's military success or failure. As Americans were largely in agreement with the invasion at the time, they saw it as justified to protect themselves whether the nature of the battle was characterized as symetric or asymetric. The US will never be underequipped compared to an enemy. Our security depends on being able to outclass anyone by far in a military confrontation. That's one reason why our military budget is greater than most of the rest of the world's combined. In any war, America will always expect to be the biggest meanest dog on the block.

3. Here's my interpretation and understanding of what Henry Kissinger said. In the larger context of the cold war where ultimately American security would be threatened and the possibility of thermonuclear war between the expansionist USSR the US existed, the survival of the human race took clear precedence over any other notions such as sovereignty, international laws, democracy, self determination, or anything else. By the way, we are in a similar situation today. Britain is delusionary if it doesn't sense the same threat and fails to act to defend itself but neither Britain nor anyone else can stop America from protecting itself in whatever way and through whatever means it sees fit. 9-11 made it clear to Americans that their country is under siege from a formidable and stealthy enemy. Funny, people in all other countries feel the same way about their right to defend themselves by whatever means they have. Notions of international law and outrage over supposed violations of it only get trotted out when it suits America bashers. Where was your precious international law and Security Council resolutions when Europe begged America to bomb Serbia and Kosovo to end the genocide there. Russia would have vetoed any Security Council resolution but Europe wasn't interested then in getting one. And if America hadn't acted, that genocide would still be going on.

What am I trying to defend here? I don't need to defend anything. I'm merely explaining events and positions to you from one American's perspective. I don't care if you don't like it or don't buy it, that's not my problem. Were it not for a handful of people like me who are willing to engage in dialogue here at all, you'd have no one to talk to but each other. The only people who like monologues are usually those who are in love with the sound of their own voices.

Mark (the American one, not my eloquent compatriot Mr Solomon),

we could bash this back and forth forever. I think I am well-versed enough in international relations to understand where you are coming from. As you may well have discerned, we disagree on almost every level and with regard to almost every single point. Despite that, I can understand your points perfectly well - it's not as if the doctrine you espouse is particularly difficult to summarise.

One thing leaves me somewhat perplexed, however. Why, I wonder, do so many of your posts sound so petulant? I mean to say, given that the USA of your discourse has no friends or allies, only strategic interests, why do you seem so upset when those whom may have historically supported the USA no longer do so? Or, again, why would you imagine that any country would show any gratitude for American actions?

Above, by way of example, you suggest that Europe should stop depending upon US contributions to NATO - and yet surely the *only* reason the USA extends those contributions is because they are in America's strategic interests. Indeed, Europe ought not be grateful one tiny bit - the extra defence spending, or the extra security afforded Europe, is, by your argument, a secondary effect of American strategic planning from the European perspective, and nothing more. Quite why an American administration would, in a fit of pique, refuse to assist France in the future seems something of a mystery.

Again, above you refer to 'enemies masquerading as friends' (such as France and Germany) - and yet, assuming international relations works as you imagine (it does not, incidentally), why use such terminology at all?

What, in short, is it that ires you so very much when others malign the USA? What earthly difference does it make to you or your country? Why do you seem so angry at the lack of gratitude of those whom you may have helped, but only in pursuit of your own interests, who do not in turn support you if they do not consider it to be in their own best interests?Why do you give two hoots as to the opinions of those whose lives you value as about as close to zero as is possible?

It's the only piece of the (otherwise uncomplicated to the point of cartoonishness) jigsaw I cannot understand.

Keith

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1) Tenet might have said whatever he wanted to Clinton: the point is that Clinton - whilst stupid enough to play the saxophone in public or use cigars in a wholly unconventional manner in private - was sufficiently connected to reality that he didn't respond disproportionately to that intelligence or try to create some tenuous link between, let's say, the first WTC bombing and Iraq.

After you draw that distinction, everything else you say is moot.

2) The current Chief Executive (surprisingly, George W. Bush as opposed to Barney, the family dog) was actually warned about an increasing level of threat in a daily briefing approximately one month before 9/11. How come GWB, Dick Cheney, Ashcroft, Rice and others didn't see that as a threat worthy of attention and yet motivated themselves to respond to some intelligence from Russia's intelligence services?

As this is the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s website, I'll let you fill in the blanks: Are you ** serious? The current administration wanted to invade Iraq as far back as 1998. It had nothing to do with Vladimir Putin's intelligence (which begs the question of how far things have come when a Republican supporter has to cite the intelligence provided by a country which also appears to have dispensed with the conventions of democracy and civil rights).

3) "I don't want Iraq to be a "better place." What I want is for Iraq to be made safe...for America. I don't care whether or not it is made safe for Iraqis. Why should I?"

Well that turned out well then, didn't it? If you wanted Iraq to be safe, you should have left well alone as Hussein was pretty much neutered and in a box.

Every other piece of that sentence is so indescribably inhumane, it makes my skin crawl. The attitude on exhibition should tell you everything about why the USA has lost a significant element of respect in the wider world - how can you trust a country when the only thing of which you can be certain is that, at some point, your supposed ally will stab you in the back for its own narrow self-interest.

Given the view you espouse, how can it possibly surprise or shock you when Iraqi insurgents (whether Sunni, Shi'ite, Wahabist extremist or Ba'athist) choose to use whatever means are available to disrupt the operations of what you've just admitted is not really an army of liberation?

4) "Here's my interpretation and understanding of what Henry Kissinger said. In the larger context of the cold war where ultimately American security would be threatened and the possibility of thermonuclear war between the expansionist USSR the US existed, the survival of the human race took clear precedence over any other notions such as sovereignty, international laws, democracy, self determination, or anything else."

OK, whatever helps you sleep at night. I've never read such a pile of alarmist bunkum in all my life. Congratulations on the whole messianic "survival of the human race" thing - shame so many Chilean citizens had to die, but - as you've previously stated - you don't really care about the human race as much as you care about you.

5) "9-11 made it clear to Americans that their country is under siege from a formidable and stealthy enemy."

Wow, you keep ratcheting up the fear, uncertainty and doubt, doncha? If the USA is "under siege", I'm trying to work out how or why the current administration now seems to play down the importance of Al Qua'ida in Central Asia, North Africa or South-East Asia. How come GWB now implies that bin Laden doesn't concern him that much?

"What am I trying to defend here?"

Beats the hell out of me. Your government appears to have deserted reason and logic for bombast and irrational scaremongering. It also appears to be committed to systematically destroying the legal fabric of your nation. If I were you, I'd be more concerned about defending my country from people who want to destroy it from within.

"I don't need to defend anything."

Well, that's just as well I suppose, as you're doing a pretty lame job.

"I'm merely explaining events and positions to you from one American's perspective. I don't care if you don't like it or don't buy it, that's not my problem."

There's an awful lot of stuff you don't care about including the death of (let's be conservative) 50,000 Iraqis, so I'm not that surprised that you don't care whether I buy your explanations. Given your indifference to the value of anyone who isn't an American, I'll try to hold back the tears.

"Were it not for a handful of people like me who are willing to engage in dialogue here at all, you'd have no one to talk to but each other."

Well, let me thank you for coming here and committing to public record your disregard for anything or anyone who disagrees with contemporary American foreign policy and your contempt for anyone unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire in Iraq or presumably anywhere else.

"The only people who like monologues are usually those who are in love with the sound of their own voices."

As opposed to the sociopathic (and somewhat narcissistic) trait of only caring for people who are willing to unquestioningly agree with everything the United States does or says.

keith fleming #22
My country is at war. I know it. It was only by chance that I was not at the World Trade Center on 9-11. I'd been there countless times. For years I only lived a mile or two away. I turned down an offer for a job four blocks away just a few months earlier. Letters I mail and which are delivered to me often pass through the Trenton post office where the nexus of the anthrax scare was a month later was.

When other countries like France were at war, occupied by Nazis who would have had them as eternal slaves, hundreds of thousands of people in my country risked their lives and many thousands lost them to free the French. They also spent billions of dollars of their own money to do it. I cannot deny that it was also in their own self interest to defeat the Germans far away rather than to wait until they brought the war to the shores of America, just as it is with Islamic terrorists insofar as that is possible. What did they ask in return from the French at the UN Security Council in early 2003? Troops? Money? A yes vote on a final ultimatum demanding that Saddam Hussein comply openly and freely with the UN inspectors or face the possiblity of military action? No, an abstention would have been sufficient. But that was too much. In fact France worked actively to prevent America from addressing what it saw as a theat to its own security. All other issues of whether that threat was real or not, or whether the sense of a threat was based on bad information or deliberately falsified information or not aside, when America needed this small thing from France, the response was NON! Why did France do this? Because it wanted to protect the illegal profits many close friends of the most powerful people in the French government were making off circumventing the sanctions and because the French government wanted to assert its perverse sense that it was still a world political power which could ultimately decide on the course of events. As I watched the speech Dominique de Villepin made to the Security Council, I heard it as a declaration of war against America and a manifesto of France's utter indifference and contempt towards whether or not America was attacked because its ability to act in its own defense had been thwarted. I have seen nothing since to change my mind, as far as I am concerned, in every way except military action, the US is already at war with Western Europe on many fronts. Its only common interest with Europe as I see it is some cooperation on Islamic terrorists but even there, Western governments who want to cooperate are now being held hostage by the public opinions of their own populations, opinions which were deliberately incited against America by Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac in their cynical posturing prior to elections they were losing in the polls in BEFORE the invasion of Iraq. By January 2003, France and Germany had already declared war on the US.

Nothing has changed. Here is an interview with Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the most insightful interviews of anyone I have seen since PBS interviewed Gorbachev about 20 years ago.

You will learn more about this man from his own words in this one hour interview than by reading all of the books and articles about him you can find. If there is a lower snake slinking through the weeds, I've never seen it. It's the same crap we heard for decades from Soviets like Arbatov. "you are a great nation, we are a great nation, you are a great people, we are a great people, we have been friends ever since we helped you get your independence, we can learn from you, and yes you can learn from us, blah blah blah." The only thing America can learn from France is how not drive your nation bankrupt by killing any incentive to productive work or risk taking. It is disgusting but it is the reality of the situation and it is best to see it and deal with it for what it is than to ignore it or pretend it is otherwise as we'd prefer it. By their own choice and actions, they have become the enemy and no government to government treaties or understandings if they arise will ever erase the sense of betrayal Americans feel towards them. It can't be fixed within my lifetime. If Britain decides it wants to join them, so be it.

Mark,

I remain confused. If American participation in WWII was purely a matter of self-interest (as you maintain America's foreign policy decisions are in all circumastances) I still do not see why France 'owes' America anything... If, as you say, the French 'no' vote at the UN SC meeting was purely in defence of her interests (I note you use the word 'illegal' to describe her contracts and profits derived therefrom in the Middle East, but also recall you making light of the very notion of international law above - please do try to hold something like a consistent line here) why did you expect any different? A debt of gratitude between friends ought to be honoured - no such debt can exist between once-aligned 'strategic interests' and only a fool would believe such a debt could exist.

'Strategic interests' come and go, and one should not expect otherwise; you seem hurt because you expected more... of what, though? A 'strategic interest'? Or what you thought didn't exist... an *ally*?

Consistency really is the problem here, isn't it? Your cartoonish Manicheanism and pseudo-Real Politik surely leaves little room for sentiment and bitterness. (Surely, by your argument, America would have done the same to France - or would still to any 'strategic interest' partner -at the drop of a hat.)

As ever, I understood what you were saying above ('I don't like the French, they're not on our side as I would wish'.) What I still do not understand is quite *why* you seem so very upset...

Awaiting clarification, rather than more espousal of your Machinean worldview - or even an explanation that fits in to that worldview...

Keith

keith fleming;
I have thought about what you have said and I have decided you are right. The French owe America nothing. International law is a farce to be trotted out only when it is convenient to use to bash someone you have a conflict with anyway. America was right to invade Iraq and no matter how the media spins it, from America's point of view it has been a very good war costing lest than 1%GDP, as many killed as in motor vehicle accidents in a month, and as many wounded as are injured in motor vehicle accidents in four days. America is also right to be at war with Western Europe, our interests for the most part are in direct conflict. Foolish sentiment clouded my judgement. And if many people hate America (not the whole world by a long shot) who cares, they need us much more than we need them. Let's see them try to last even one day without America. Screw 'em.

Mark,

There are any number of problems with your logic:-

* The war with Iraq may very well only be costing 1% of US GDP. However, it is not being paid for with American money, but with government debt that is held in quite significant levels by the USA's trading partners including the PRC. So, whilst your European NATO partners are fighting the war you should be fighting in Afghanistan and your trading partners are cashing all your cheques, I'd argue that the balance of need is pretty much even.

* A war is only a "very good war" if it delivers on an identifiable set of strategic aims within an acceptable timeframe. Given that Iraq decomposing into a federal republic divided along tribal/ethnic/religious lines wasn't an element of the strategic aims, and neither was providing an opportunity for Iran to extend its sphere of influence, I'm confused as to how that constitutes a "very good" war.

* Maybe it's a "very good" war because it's making the USA safer at home. Then again, maybe it would be smarter to have those 100,000+ troops at home helping to patrol and defend your borders. And maybe the $500 billion spent so far would have been better spent on improving security at those borders.

* Given that your country is paying for the war on credit, the real cost will be $500 billion plus whatever the bill is for the remainder of the campaign plus the interest on all those T-bills for maybe ten or twenty years.

• It's probably not such a good idea to drag up the ethics of France's illegal dealings with Iraq. It's worth remembering that US companies such as Ford and GM made money from interests in Nazi Germany even when the Luftwaffe were bombing the daylights out of Europe. And it's also worth remembering that the current president's grandfather made a significant living effectively laundering money for the Third Reich.

Mark Soloman;
Aren't Europeans equally threatened by Al Qaeda as America is and therefore they have every bit as much at stake as the US. What do you mean the US should be fighting that war, it's a war that involves all of the civilized world including China, Russia, India? Who has the most military assets there anyway, Canada? People don't hold American debt for nothing as you point out below. Not only do they expect to be paid back, they expect interest on their money. What kind of twisted logic is it that America is not paying for Iraq? If only you were right and others paid for it, it would make it that much more palatable.

Why is Iraq a good war? It upset the entire applecart of the Middle east. the whole landscape is changed. The goal was to get rid of Saddam Hussein and we did. Now we can, we must sit back and watch them kill each other. No worry now that Iraq would attack the US anytime soon. Was George Tenet's statement to President Bush that Iraq having WMDs was a slam dunk way off the mark? Was Putin blowing smoke when he told Bush that Iraq would attack America on its own soil? Maybe but the President made his decision on the best information he had, that is all he can be expected to do and no amount of rewriting history to suit a political agenda can put it back to the way it was. I think it will be interesting to see how Sunni Syria positions itself with its Shiite friends in Iran when time comes for a showdown over the future of Iraq among the neighbors. I don't see where the problem is. We'll get out as soon as Hillbillery becomes president and then we will be forced to go back in again to sweep up the pieces when they've finally had at each other. I see no disadvantage to the terrorists and Arabs fighting each other over there, Israel has become an unimportant side show.

President Bush has made it clear he doesn't want the Mexican border protected from illegal aliens. America citizens would be happy to do it themselves if they have to but the government won't let them. There's even been a recent incident where a government border patrol guard is being prosecuted for engaging in a gun battle with illegal aliens trying to get in. Even conservatives like MSNBC's Lou Dobbs are furious about it.

Yes the war will be a lot of money until you compare it to the cost of not fighting it. It cost the US taxpayers trillions to defend Europe and I must say that was money not very well spent. I could live with Europe as part of the Soviet slave empire just as it was after WWII on about the same level as East Germany in 1989 when the wall came down. The threat to America would have been no greater.

What you say about the corruption of American corporations during world war II may be true but that was then, this is now. France is culpable. They will get exactly what they deserve.